Advice on Airbrush Graphics Technique

parthenonsurfer · April 30, 2012, 4:03am

I’m currently shaping a 6’2" kiteboard surfboard and will soon be painting the graphics on the foam before glassing. Here’s a question for any of the artist/graphics types out there. I hope you can help.

Part of my design includes running a 5" wide black & white checkerboard stripe( it will look like the stripe across the start/finish line at a car racetrack) down the length of the board. Each alternating black & white square will be 1" x 1" but I’m a stumped on the technique on how to best mask & paint all of these squares.

Can anyone help with advice on the technique? It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Huck · April 30, 2012, 4:59am

Never done it, but if it were me, I'd run some 1" wide tape in straight lines, side by side.

Then I'd cut 90 degrees across the lines, every 1", with a sharp knife.

Then I'd just lift every other square.

MickD · April 30, 2012, 5:57am

yep, don’t over think it too much, Huck did a great example.

The way I have done this is with sign writer’s transfer tape. It’s low tack and like a very wide piece of masking tape which you can get up to 4’+ wide. just draw and cut your squares and weed out every other one as above.

Cheers,

Mick.

parthenonsurfer · April 30, 2012, 1:40pm

Huck & Mick,

Thanks for the advice! Your method is probably the easiest way,and it brings up a couple of questions. I forgot to mention in my original post that I’m painting directly on the foam.

Huch - Are their any tips to minimize the possibility of accidentally cutting the foam when making the horizontal cuts? As a middle aged carpenter, sometimes the hands go numb or lose feeling when I do something repetitive.

Mick - does the sign writers tape have enough tack to stay down when I use the airbrush, or do I need to paint the squares by hand with a brush?

Chris

artz · April 30, 2012, 1:29pm

Great job Huck,

Here is one more trick to put in the bag. lay out the whole area first and paint it all white. Now spray with light coat of clean. let dry Now do as Huck has instructed. one the tape is in the pattern spray a clear coat around the edges to prevent bleeding under the tape. always just a light coat let dry and now spray with the black let dry and carefully remove the tape Those square can be a pain in the azz to remove so have an exacto knife handy.

artz · April 30, 2012, 2:02pm

Use a good quality painters tape with a light coat of clear acrylic you will be fine. I have painted thousands of boards with an airbrush right on foam. Hand painting will be very labor intensive and the results will not be great.

atomized · April 30, 2012, 4:03pm

You will score into the foam a bit when you do this. Don’t use an exacto knife, or a utility knife to make the cuts. Use a single edge razor blade (the kind so popular with coke fiends). They’re thinner, and don’t make that wide of a score in the foam.

Thinner tape is easier to cut through than thicker. 3M 2209 is very thin and easy to cut through. Make sure the tape is burnished down on the surface before you paint to avoid fuzzy edges.

pico · April 30, 2012, 5:16pm

i believe this is 1.5" green tape from 3m. pulled lengthwise, then used a straightedge laid across the board and a brand-new blade. You will score the foam for sure, but don’t worry, you have to meticulously push down every piece around the edges after you cut out.

I already erased the pics off the harddrive, but they can be seen here: http://forhumansbyhumans.blogspot.com/2011/11/checkerboard.html#links

don’t worry its very doable, this was my first attempt ever, worked fine.

huie · April 30, 2012, 9:04pm

haaaaaaaaaaaa’’

very funny cutting the squares out this is as funny as it gets on here.

** cheers huie
**

LeeD · May 1, 2012, 2:14am

I advised JamesChen of Kinetic to just computer copy using a printer (standard ink) onto rice paper, a checkerboard pattern about 5" wide running down the center of the raceboards.

He did the rest, and said it was easy, and the black ink didn't run.

f1f859bda2f2a3ab344c · May 1, 2012, 2:33am

NICE !!

Now that’s sharing!!

parthenonsurfer · May 1, 2012, 2:48am

Just got home from work and saw all the posts. Thanks for all the great advice everyone. I’ll post pictures when the board is done.

Chris

ghettorat · May 1, 2012, 2:57am

Back in the early 80’s Lance Collins, and Bucky Olson had the checkerboard thing down. Spraying with lacquers either one of them could whip off amazingly detailed works in world record time. The Wave Tools team ripped in the water too. Not just Preston, Kwock, Richardson, and Parker, but Titus, and Alikai. Nice to been there and seen and learned how to do it.

paulr · May 1, 2012, 4:43am

Huie’s right to laugh at you blokes. You seem to have missed the obvious, so I’ll spell it out for you:

Step 1: Lay down your tape in one direction, with the spacing between tape exactly the same width as the tape.

Step 2: Lay down your tape in the other direction, spaced exactly as per the first direction.

Step 3: Spray your colour over the tape.

Step 4: Pull the tape to leave the following pattern.

Step 5: Lay down your tape in exactly the same manner as per steps 1+2, but this time make sure it exactly covers the painted areas. Notice how this picture looks like the one from step 2, but is offset by the size of the squares.

Step 6: Spray your colour over the tape again.

Step 7: Pull the tape to reveal the checkerboard pattern.

Mind you, I skipped some of the details like sealing, etc, but I’m sure you can combine details from the earlier posts with this post to get the result you’re after.

Cutting lots of squares…hahahahahaha!

Cheers

Paul

ResinDrums · May 1, 2012, 5:14am

Print it on rice paper.doesnt get much eaasier than that.

atomized · May 1, 2012, 3:20pm

That takes twice as long and you use twice the amount of tape.

artz · May 1, 2012, 4:50pm

What atomizer said plus more chances of pulling paint off. and more chances of bleeding under the tape but other then that it all good.

pico · May 2, 2012, 1:54am

I’d rather cut and pull once and more importantly spray once, but different strokes…thanks for contributing after laughing paulr.

paulr · May 2, 2012, 2:44am

Interesting that I’m on my own on this one. To be pedantic, you’re not pulling tape once, you’re pulling up many little squares on two occasions, first before spraying, and then again after spraying. Surely pulling all the tape up in one go (or at least in several long strips) on two occasions is much easier.

I hear what you’re saying about spraying, and I’m just a backyard hack so I don’t need to worry about a production workflow, but surely spraying twice is easier than mucking around with a lot of little squares…especially since I’m assuming you don’t sit around waiting for the paint to dry and have other things to do in the meantime.

As you say, different strokes…

Cheers
Paul

huie · May 2, 2012, 3:08am

well hello’’

i am the one that is laughing

atom i know you know what you are doing. and i would agree if it was a 5’’ squares then you would cut it

dont think there is 5’’ tape anyway.

but here in australia in the eightys checkerd tape ups in diagonal or other were rampant

**the tape up method was std practice no pulling paint or bleed twice as much tape three times as easy.
**

try going round the rail and cut the squares haaa’’ thats bullshit

pauu you have been taught the right way but it can be done in a few less steps than you have shown besides checks is an ausie thing.

** cheers huie
**