wood

Jason S. Jewett, who is 27 years old, has been airbrushing for more than 13 years. He attended Derby High School where he enrolled in the only airbrushing and design curriculum in the state of Kansas. With the help of teacher and mentor Roger Scovell, he became very fast and efficient in his artwork. Taking two classes a day for four years, Jason immersed himself in everything that had to do with a airbrush. Jason and his wife started Redhouse Custom Paint, Inc. in 2005 where they specialize in custom paint for motorcycles and custom choppers. Though they do offer 23kt. Gold Leaf and Old School Pinstriping, thier accolades come from high end custom airbrush. Redhouse clients stretch from New Jersey to Kansas and grow more by the day.

Airbrush : Iwata HP-C, Custom Micron C
Spray Guns: Iwata LPH400 and Iwata LPH300
Paint Media:
Surface Media: Everything I can get paint to stick to.
Masking : R-Tape and 3M Masking Tapes
Projector: Artograph
Lighting : Natural and Florescent.

Step 1 – Start with a painted and prepped surface. This can be primed and base coated or primed, base coated, cleared and sanded.

Step 2 – With fine line tape (vinyl), lay out the desired shape. Make sure that that you burnish all overlapping tape to prevent “blowouts”.

Step 3 – Smoothly and evenly apply transfer tape (R tape) over entire design and substrate to prevent over-spray. With a hard squeegee, burnish down all of the transfer tape (R tape). Be especially sure to burnish tight along the edge outside of your graphic to prevent “blowouts”.

Step 4 - With a new razor blade, lightly cut out your graphic and remove the piece you want to paint. Base coat the piece with a light blonde color to cover and allow to dry by the recommendation of the paint manufacturer.

Step 5 – next you will need 5 paper towels, a cheap 3” paint brush (clean)with natural bristles and overly reduced shade of brown. The colors that you chose both for your base and your wood grain will delegate the type of wood you are trying replicate. Also, do not use “kandies”. Kandies tendy to give a transparent look that resembles plastic or “cartoonish” look.

Step 6 – Dip your brush no further than a ¼” into your wood grain color. Any more than that and you’ll be paletting your brush forever trying to get it dry. Blot your brush on the stack of paper towels until you can barely see any paint transfer.

Step 7 – test your brush on the masking paper to see how dry it is. If it looks like water color, it’s too wet. We want a very dry brush for this technique. If it’s too wet, simply blot one or two more times on your paper towel. Make sure you save the left-over wood grain color for steps 13-16.

Step 8 – turn your brush parallel with the length of your piece. In a swooping vertical “U”, swoop down on to the substrate and then swoop up and off. For this size of project, your brush mark should be no longer than 10-12”. Repeat this action in varying locations (or scacastic locations) to prevent visible patterns. Dip and blot as necessary.

Step 10 – After allowing to dry for at least 30 minutes, lay out your hot rod flames in fine line. Be sure to overlap the licks as shown in the bubble. This will come into play later.

Step 11 – Apply your transfer tape (R tape) over the flames. Lightly cut out your flames and remove the outside masking paper.

Step 12 – Now with a new sharp razorblade, cut the overlapping fine line licks. When done, the licks should look like the close up picture in the bubble.

Step 13 – With the over reduced brown that was used for steps 7-8, apply a drop shadow on one side of your flame graphic. Next, with your airbrush approximately 5-8” off the substrate, lightly fog around the rest of the flames. Try not to give a definite line pattern to this fogging. The idea is to simply make the background slightly darker than the flames.

Step 14 – After completing the drop shadows and background fogging, remove the masking from the flames. This is what it should look like.
Step 15 – with your wood grain color, airbrush a light “dimensional curve” along the side of your drop shadows. With an over reduced “off white” apply light highlights along the opposite edge where you fogged in the background.

Step 16 – All you have to do now is pinstripe the outer edge of the wood and embellish, if you like.

There you have it. One of the easiest techniques I have in my arsenal. I hope I’ve explained everything a thorough as possible. Now all you have to do try it for yourself!