Thomas Banks owns Big Daddy Customs near Pittsburgh, PA. now little more than a year later, I’ve painted several prize-win-
A Pittsburgh native, I spent 12 years in the US Army being all I ning motorcycles and have my own custom paint and airbrush
could be. I worked for an automotive college as a recruiter for graphics business. I am also working for Ohio Technical College
about one and a half years, talking to high school students about as a Demonstration Artist, going to high schools and showing
custom automotive and auto body programs. I had the fortu- students that with desire and proper technique, they can enjoy
nate opportunity to work with the school’s airbrush instructor, the art of airbrushing also. You can see more of my work and
Richard Markham. I never took an art class beyond 8th grade find out when I’ll be in a town near you at www.BigDaddyCu-
and have no auto body experience, but he convinced me that I stoms.net
should give airbrushing a try. I took a couple of his classes, and
This is a 2007 Harley Davidson Road King (AKA Road Queen) the owner drove
directly from the dealership to my shop for paint. I carefully removed the factory
logos using a heat gun, as I planned on putting them back on after paint. The sur-
face was cleaned using a degreaser, then scuffed with 600 grit wet sandpaper and
degreased again.
The tank is based using Auto Air Porn Star Pink applied directly over the factory black paint. As
this is a candied pearl, slowly build the color over the black to achieve the color you desire. By
painting directly on the black base, I can make this pink into a plum color, allowing the pink and
purple micro flake to come alive. For this project, there were 2 light coats and 2 medium coats
applied, heat set between coats.
I start building my fire using Auto Air Transparent
White reduced 1:1 with Auto Air 4010 Medium
Flash Reducer. The key to this fire technique is
allowing your over-spray to work for you and not
applying your white to 100% color strength. Fire
is a transparent gas, so you want your flames to
be wispy. Build your flames from the center out, al-
lowing the over-spray to fan out onto the base col-
or. Be careful about the thickness or width of your
flames. When you think you have them the desired
width, make them a bit fatter to avoid them having
a spaghetti look after you apply color.
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