Those of you whom have followed Mike for any length of time have probably noticed that he is a big fan of Warbird paint jobs, particularly on guitars. It all started when Mike first picked up an airbrush, around the age of 10, because he wanted to paint his model airplanes. But the interest for the […]
HOW TO: Focke Wulf 190 WWII Warbird
When it comes to painting Warbirds, a good portion of great execution is understanding how to complete complex masking processes. These types of designs require numerous “layers” and masking them in the correct order is integral to the success of the final piece. For this particular tutorial, we will focus on “order of execution.” This […]
HOW TO: Bullet Holes
This is a quick video detailing how to create super-realistic bullet holes in metal – both “innies” and “outies”. Mike explains the process from beginning to end.
How To: 300 Brass Helmet/Shield Effect
If you haven’t seen the movie 300 – WOW! All I can say is, you HAVE to take the time! As with any graphically intense, popular movie, not long after its release, people started requesting this type of theme on bikes, cars, skateboards, whatever you can paint. We thought it would be timely and well […]
HOW TO: Bevel Tribal Graphics
We have had a lot of requests for a How To on beveled tribal graphics. The following technique is a really simple way to go about it. The tribal graphics were created in CorelDRAW. Once the shape was finessed, an 1/8″ contour was added and the file printed. For this project, we first painted the […]
HOT TIP: Mask Lines
Those of you who work with vinyl mask know how frustrating it can be at times when you cannot really see the cuts on your mask. This can make it very difficult to properly weed out and can cause you to end up with missing pieces of a design. Force your cut lines to stand […]
Creating Your Own Text Mask
With the nearly unlimited font resources that we have today, very often you can find a type style that is almost exactly what you are looking for. Want to know how to make that font editable so you can get that extra tweak, add a bevel, etc? It’s easy! Using a vector program like Adobe […]
HOW TO SAFELY REMOVE TAPE/VINYL ADHESIVE RESIDUE
This is a question we see time and time again not only on this site, but on others as well. “How do I remove tape residue without compromising the artwork?” There is no ONE right way to do it, but over the years we have learned a couple different methods that will do to the […]