Fisk introduced Wes to some of his childhood heroes like cus- until about 1992.
tom car builder and painter Ed “Big Daddy” Roth of the “Rat With his experience airbrushing surfboards, Wes decided to
Fink” cartoon fame. try surfboard foam for the cast paper mold. At home Wes
For several years Wes fine tuned his artistic talent under the carved his first wave out of the close cell foam and it worked
tutelage of Fisk until one day, out of the blue, a voice from his perfect. Wes’ airbrushed cast paper waves became the most
past called him. It was Robbie Adkins of the old Airbrush Shop successful piece of art the Figi Corporation ever sold! His cast
who was then working for Figi Giftware with the new art me- paper art started showing up in J.C. Penny’s, Hallmark stores
dium cast-paper. Adkins asked Wes to join her in airbrushing and even around the world. One piece of his art was seen in
cast paper. the window display of a war-torn Beirut, Lebanon store front.
Eventually Adkins left Figi and Wes was offered the cast paper Recently a fan base of his cast paper artwork has developed
position. Wes worked at Figi for next eight years from 1984
on the internet!
Wes was creating so many pieces of art that Figi decided to sculpting skills he learned at Figi to design retail products for
have him sign his art with other names like Carlos and Sue. companies like Orange County Choppers of the famed reality
Wes was designing one new piece of art every day. However, in television show.
2001 counterfeit art from Asia started showing up in the US The shop’s owner, Matt Couper, asked Wes to design some
and Figi went out of business. body parts for the shop’s signature 1967 “bad-ass”, ground
Back in his survival mode, Wes found occasional airbrushing up customized, pearl black, 900 horse powered, Obsidan SG1
jobs with Fisk and it was through the pin-stripper’s contacts Mustang. Wes designed interior parts and many of the cars
that he landed a new job at a custom car shop called Auto- unique body parts (see pictured hood scoop below) and an alu-
works International in El Cajon, Ca. www.autoworksracing.com
minum intake manifold for the car’s twin turbos.
Along with airbrushing custom art on hot rods Wes used his
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