by Carlene Dornbush

Self bio~

Born and raised in Florida in the 60’s, Georgia red clay is now where I call home. I grew up in my dad’s body shop; cars/trucks became my passion at an early age. As a young teen by dad bought me a Bluepoint airbrush (badger150) I didn’t do much with it at that time, as like most teenagers I was easily distract- ed. In my late 20’s I received a new brush, still a Badger 150 but now with a solid metal body. Books and how to articles were hard to find at that time even our local library had very minimal information concerning airbrushing. The lack of information left me with the task of learning how best to use my new airbrush by trail and error. Using homemade hand cut stencils I gradu-

ally become pretty handy with my new airbrush. I was labeled a realist in high school, I like things to be photographic, freehand airbrushing is not my strong suit. I did manage to start a small business airbrushing art on boats for a few years but the busi- ness never got going as I had hoped. Eventually I stopped air- brushing completely for about 10yrs. Now at the age of 42 and starting a car-customizing hobby again I’m starting over again with yet another new airbrush the Omni Matrix this time. Grow- ing up in and around my dad’s body shop the only paints I’ve have ever used were strictly automotive; basecoat/clear coat paints and I’m still using them today.

In this article I will be showing you how I airbrush the chrome look in this emblem project. The customer wanted this to look like the original on a rubber backing. He had seen an emblem I airbrushed on another customers car awhile back and really liked the look so he came to me with his project. He provided me with a picture of what the original factory emblem looked like and I made a stencil from that. I’m a self-taught airbrush artist and use stencils a lot however on big items I’m learning to use free hand shields. Since this project is so small (as shown by the size of a dime later) I kept the postive pieces (the letters) I cut out and used them later in the project.

I start by spraying the ‘backing’ black. Next I place the main piece in and moved it down just a bit and apply a dusting of grey across the top to create the ‘backing’, this will not show up until it’s clear coated.

I put the main piece back in place and sprayed some white. It doesn’t have to be a solid white, the mottled effect actually adds

to the illusion. Hold the edges down as you spray to keep the fog to a minimum, it too adds to the overall glow. Next I fog in some blue being careful not too apply too much. If it doesn’t look right, fog over it with the white and repeat the step with the blue. Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32