I came to live in the U.S. from Ireland in 1984 and presently lives in Los Angels, CA. Peter Fonda’s bike in the movie EZ Rider always fascinated me as a kid and what drew me to this art form. I had a hard time learning as not many people where willing in those days to share their techniques or knowledge. I struggled for the better part of 5 years teach- ing myself, many times getting so discouraged I would almost quit. But I stuck it out and all that practice is now
paying off and I’m glad I did not give in and quit. I use exclusively Iwata airbrushs, mostly Microns and ure- thane paints. In 1995 I opened my shop here in Los angels and do custom motorcycles. from fabrication of tanks and fenders, tank stretching, flush mounted LED systems and of course custom paint. My work can be seen on my web site
www.badasspaint.com.
The prep work is critical in any custom paint job so I send the tanks to be sand blasted. This does a great job of clean- ing the tanks of grease and oil leaving a great surface for any body work to be done. With the body work completed next step is to apply primer and than an epoxy sealer. For base color I use PPG Fast Red with some Pink Pearl and this is followed by two coats of clear. I than allow it to sit for two days and than use 500 grit sand paper to scuff the clear preparing it for the art work. I apply transfer paper which will serve as my masking on these tanks.
I draw up a pencil sketch of a skull and use a photo copier to re size my drawing to come up with the correct fit for the tank.
Using an X atco knife I cut the skull design out of my pa- per stencil. I than draw some flames out on paper and cut them out also. Now holding both my stencils in place on the tank with magnets I use my airbrush and black base coat and dust in a little black which leaves a negative im- pression on the transfer paper.
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