where I can really make a mess with paint and spray some of the bigger pieces of work. To make it blend into the lovely countryside around my home, I have painted it in the style of an old fantasy castle using simple DIY exterior house paint. When we get visitors with young children the kids are told about the dragon that lives in the castle at the bottom of the garden, it is the sort of thing that keeps them amused for hours.
Having a plotter is great it saves time and that is also re- flected in the price of the equipment. If you are a hobbyist, then spending money on a plotter may be a bit much. It can be fun transferring and image and cutting out by hand and it is certainly good practice for steadying your hand. However, I do this for a living so time is money, my plotter and reliable software is my friend.
You have won twelve custom awards from 2002 to 2011, so can you tell us how you go about setting your custom work out?
Right, first of all, the client is the most important element for me when it comes to this sort of work – I pride myself in being honest and upfront and it is my responsibility to come up with work that the client is proud of. I would never sell a client short with work that I feel is not up to standard and believe me, my standards are high. There is often a trade-off between what is possible and what is affordable for the cli- ent. Most people often don’t really know what they want, but they will see an image and think ‘hey that would look cool on my tank or bonnet/hood’. That is all well and good but they do not have is an idea of how they would like the layout or colour scheme laid out on their vehicle. What I do is meet them and try and find out their likes and dislikes and see what sort of character they are. I find this way of working helps me build a picture of the person and hopefully I can tweak and work their image to suit the sort of person they are to reflect a style they are comfortable with. Obviously this cannot be attributed to everyone as some of my work is only done through e-mails but even so there is always quite a bit of correspondence back and fourth until I am happy with the information that I have. As far as placing the image or images on the surface, I used to be a transfer tape person but obviously as times moved on, computers and plotters came into play.
Do you have a favorite paint or do you use different sorts?
My favorite paint is ComArt I find that it dries very quickly and when using stencils the paint stays on the surface and does not get pulled off. All the colors I use are translucent and I generally start with white and work from there. I am working on fabrics, then Liqutex paints are for me they have such durability - I still have a leather jacket that I painted 17 years ago and it has defiantly stood the test of time. Up until now I have not used any candies but I would like to try them.
Can you remember your first commission?
Wow that’s a hard one! I can’t remember my first paying job but there is one job that has always stuck in my mind and I suppose it was around about one of my first commissions. It was a Fosters Beer V-Max motorcycle. The lady owner of
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