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Shane8stud

Lightening and Darkening

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Sounds to me you may have things a little backwards, at least from my experience.

I hope you've done a sealer and a primer first.

After quite a few trials and errors, I've come up with a system that works for me.

Remember, I'm a carpenter, not an artist.

The first thing I do, after I've sanded a lure with 220, is seal it with either Minwax Polyacrylic, or Minwax Wood Hardener. Lately, I've only used the Wood Hardener, and am really happy with the results so far.

I let whichever one I use dry overnight, and then lightly sand it with 220 again to remove any wood that's been raised.

I don't worry too much about a perfectly smooth wood surface. A little grain telegraphing through just gives the lure additional surfaces for reflective highlights, and the final epoxy coat will smooth it all off anyway.

Next, I put on a Krylon white primer, and let it dry overnight. It is a really soft coating, and I usually spray two coats on a few minutes apart, so I want it as hard as possible before I start my painting.

Then I start my painting.

I do a base coat of the lightest color I want first, and then move to my other colors.

I am not an artist, so I usually do two base colors plus a scale pattern. I do a light colored coat, like pearlized white or silver, on the whole lure, a scale pattern with a flip flop or iridescent color over drywall mesh tape, and then a darker color on the back, spraying at an angle from over the back to get a shadowing on the shoulders.

I sometimes do an accent strip, like chartreuse or hot flamingo, after I've done the two main colors.

I've found that if I do a pastel fixative coat after I've done my scale pattern, I can undo the next coat without ruining the base and scale pattern.

And if I do another fixative coat after I've done the back and shoulders, I can play around with accent colors without ruining the work I've done up to that point.

The water based paints I use (Createx, Auto Aire, Wildlife, Apple Barrel) aren't affected by the Krylon pastel fixative coat, as long as I let it dry before the next color coat.

After I've finished my paint scheme, I usually spray on some Krylon glitter, dry it with a hair drier, let it sit for a couple of hours, and then topcoat with epoxy.

I've used D2T and Envirotex Lite as topcoats, and each has it's good points, but both yellow in the sun.

Now I'm using Nu Luster 55 with UV inhibitors, to prevent yellowing. So far, so good.

Good luck.

Edited by mark poulson
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Should i use wood hardener if I'm not using wood? I'm gonna be sanding down some cranks that are plastic or whatever? what should i use then?

Shane,

There's no need to use a sealer when you're repainting plastic cranks.

Just sand the surface with fine paper, to insure a good bond with the new paint, prime, and go.

I don't even prime if the crank is of clear plastic, and I want a transparent paint job. Just fine sand, wipe with alcohol to clean off the dust and your finger prints, and paint.

I use cheap latex gloves (thanks Pete) to avoid finger prints, which can cause the paint and/or the topcoat not to adhere. This problem is called fish eyes, I think, and it leaves blank spots on the lure, since the bond of the paint/topcoat is broken by the oil in the fingerprints.

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so what about fading? say i want to paint the bottom of a lure dark red and make it bright red on the side or any kind of combo like this? what do i need to do with the airbrush?

Shane,

Again, I'm no expert, or artist.

If I were going to make a lure dark red on one part, and fade into lighter red on another, I'd paint both parts with the lighter red in a transparent red, until I got the light shade I wanted, and then go over the part I wanted darker with several more coats, until the red darkened as much as I wanted.

I guess a person could undercoat the darker red part first with a dark red, and then try to fade to lighter on the sides.

I'd experiment with different methods, one at a time, and see what I could come up with.

Try priming a scrap of the same wood with about the same profile, so the shading will reflect what will happen on the lure, and practice different methods until you find one that fits.

Use a hair dryer to heat set/dry each coat, both to save time between coats, and to insure that there's no water left in the previous coat which could vaporize under the top coat and cause it to fail.

Practice is the best teacher.

You'll learn pretty quickly by just trying.

And don't be afraid to fail. I've always learned as much or more from my mistakes.

Of course, I've made a lot of them, so, by now, I should be a genieass! :lol:

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I have forgotten everything about color but you can ponder a few things. First..get a color wheel. Browns can be made by using the opposite color. This can be good for darkening. A brown on the yellow side will be warm and from the red side will look cold or harder. This I think would be better than say..using black. So I guess I am saying you can fade with color, transparent paint,multiple strokes. My first baits were white with a grey back and black top. I don't know how long I cursed but it was a long time. I got the feel for overspray and how to get a nice blend. You know what? My airbrushing still sucks.

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Shane8stud.

As you can see here there are many ways to skin a cat, but one basic rule, which sounds obvious is, always go light to dark, rarely the other way round and usually start with white or a very light colour.

Start with layers of your lighter colours and build on top of these gradually going to darker colours- this goes for fading the same colour as well, so for your blue bottom, fading to the sides, you would do the side with one light coat and as you move to the bottom, you would build to a more solid colour just by adding more layers (dry between layers).

Another way of getting a lighter hue (for w/b acrylics) of the same colour is to water it down and then mix in some 'medium' (matte is best), this replaces the binder (makes it stick) you have removed when watering it down and also makes the colour more transparent.

By doing many light coats you can gradually change colours, for instance, a light coat of red over blue will get you a light purple, add another light layer of red and you will get maroon - red over yellow gets orange spray a bit of black and get brown.

Play with it on a scrap piece of white PVC water pipe .pete

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A good method to help you learn how to perfect blending, fading or feathering paint is to paint a square piece of metal or other suitable material black. Then take white paint and start in one of the corners and paint it solid. Then start blending the white towards the other corner. The idea is that when you're done a solid black corner and a solid white corner with no obvious transitional line from black to white in between. Once you can accomplish the rest is down hill!

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