Skulls and Fire

It may seem that all I paint is fire and skulls but practice makes perfect and the quicker I can paint them the faster I can create designs.

The new airbrush I ordered came in last week and this is the first job with it. I bought my last IWATA HP-C's about 20 years ago. Mind you there was about 10 years where they sat and collected dust.

I finally decided on the IWATA HP-C Highline and it is a great airbrush. This helmet was my first attemt with the airbrush and I am hoping  to get at it again this week but so far, I like it. At some point this week I will have to clear the helmet.

The new airbrush has what is called a mack valve, It allows you to adjust the air flow and I think this will serve very useful when it comes to fine detail with autoair white and black. I tend to dillute them more than recommended to help stop spitting and tip dry.

After prepping the helmet, I basecoated the helmet with Autoair black and then clear coated it. After wet sanding the helmet I was ready to start painting.

I started by lightly spraying the skull template with black. This will give me a guide to freehand airbrush the skulls.






Using a moss green color mixed with white, I started freehanding the skulls. Here I am adding basic detail. I will then go back and forth with black and the moss color mix to get the effect I am looking for.







The paint work took me a little over ten hours. Probably longer than I should have but I was playing with the various controls of the airbrush and paint consistancy. I still had issues with the tip dry and had to constantly clean the tip by pinching the needle end and pulling off the paint. You have to keep a close eye on this or you will get ugly spitting.

I also got the chance to use another one of my Harley logos cut with my Redsail cutter. The logo is about as small as I think I can cut but is a good size for helmets. It is a pain to strip the removable masking but I am so happy I don't have to cut it out by hand. So here are pics of the various sides.




Overall I am happy and picked up a few new tricks.


This was also the first time I painted barb wire. It wasn't as hard as I though and turned out pretty clean. I used 2 masks to create the effect.

First I cut a wavy cut through a piece of masking film separating it into 2 pieces. I layed them down on the helmet separating the pieces the width of the barb wire. I then sprayed the gray. I then replaced the pieces in a different formation so they criss crossed and sprayed the color.

I then cut the small barbwire tab and placed it over where the wires crossed and sprayed white to cover the surface. Using black and a curved template I sprayed the coil with two light passes. I then moved them to the other areas and did the same. I used diluted black to create the shadows and white for highlights. Pretty simple! Hope this works for you!

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Harley Helmet

 I picked up a few novelty helmets to paint and display at a local bike shop. I wetsanded the helmet, paint a black base coat with autoair black and then clear coated to protect the black. I wetsanded the helmet after it was completely cured.

Using my new Redsail RS720 plotter I cut out the Harley logo on a removable mask material. I stripped the mask and centered it on the front of the helmet. I was now ready to start the flames.


Here are a few more pics before final clear coat. The logo masking worked out well and was really crisp. I worked on the colors for the true fire and still find it to be an effort to get the right effect.

Autoair vs Autoborne

Autoair black test

I just received some autoborne colors and wanted to test the difference between the two. Reviews claimed that the Autoborne had less tip dry. Tip dry is a common Autoair issue. I spent the evening testing the airborne and found it to be a little better than the autoair for tip dry.


The autoair black was a little warmer than the autoborne black. I also found that I was able to dilute the autoborne a lot more than the autoair, which allowed for a better spray or atomization.

Autoborne black test

So far, I only tested the black and the white for highlights and found the autoborne black to also be very deep black. Spraying both paints take a little practice to get the right consistency so that the paints spray smoothly. I did get a bit of spitting once in a while and had to make sure I cleaned the airbrush tip with my fingertips on a regular basis. I will go back at it so that I can get the detail I am looking for.

I also recieved Autoairs new transparent Jet black and I will be testing tomorrow.

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Playing around

My plan was to reclear my helmet to fix a few imperfections that were drving me crazy. I had originally clear coated and when the clear was dry, i had to cut around the air vent to remove masking. I did not find this made a clean finish. After a bit of research, the consensus was to remove the tape while the clear was still wet, allowing for the clear to seep in around the vent giving it a better finish. Although touchy I decided to try this with my helmet. Its better to screw up mine rather than a clients helmet. Unfortunately when  I wet sanded the first layer of clear to add another coat, I sanded through the paint on two of the rivets so I had to fix them.

With the helmet touched up, I still had some black left over in my airbrush, so I thought I would paint it out instead of dumping it. I didn't spend a lot of time on it but my airbrush was working well. I had done a thorough cleaning earlier this week. The autoair restorer is a amazing product and managed to clean areas I though would never come off.

New Plotter

I finally picked up a plotter after years of cutting out my masks and stencils by hand. It took me a while to figure it out but the plotter seems to work well.



I searched the web to try and find the best buy and decided on the RedSail RS720 plotter. I only needed the plotter to cut my airbrush stencils, so I was not looking to spend a couple thousand for a plotter. After seeing the output, I should be able to make a few bucks making signs if there is a request.



Before buying I tried to find reviews on the plotter but was not successful at finding any reviews. I found a few cheap shots on the lower quality components from various forums but they seemed to be uneducated attacks . Unsure I took a chance and so far I am very happy although there were little to no setup instructions. I sat down and with a bit of common sense, got it set up. Connecting to the PC with the appropriate software was simple and worked right away. It has good detail and is reasonably quiet. Time will tell but at this point I am happy with my purchase.





Here is my first paint trial with masks cut with my new plotter, airbrush laptop. I searched the house for something to paint on and found an old laptop to airbrush on.



I started by painting the logo with autoair paints. Stripping the masks in and out I was easily able to paint the logo.





The lines were very crisp. After the surface was completely dry, I masked the logo and painted the flames. I have not clear coated the laptop yet but I may just pick up a spray can of clear.



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