Hey whats up, Im a 15 year old Grom from San Diego and I want to someday airbrush a cool design onto my shortboard.
Ive always wanted to airbrush but Im not sure what to do and where to start. Im an artist, and I want to have an sick design on my board.
I was thinking of something like Yadins board. The one that has the red and black circles on the deck near the tail. Ive always loved that design and it wouldn’t be to hard to replicate. Post your ideas and help! Peace.
FYI: Mike is my nephew. I suggested that he try posting here about getting some help with the technical details of putting his artwork on a surfboard. He is a great artist, and is addicted to surfing.
Mike, Airbrushing on surfboards is super easy. Make sure you prep your surface first. By that I mean sand it so the paint will stick. I usually sand with 220 grit paper. Then make a stencil or do freehand designs with your airbrush. If you do a stencil you can easily move the stencil around to make it appear that thing are in front or behind other things.
As far as getting an airbrush if you don’t have one. Get something cheap to start with. That way you make mistakes with cheap gear. I think the Pasche VL kit is the way to go. It comes with 3 tips and a little booklet on beginning airbrushing.
For paint I like AutoAir colors. You can buy them online from Bearair or other internet sources. Make sure you get the reducer if you go this route. Many other like to use acrylics. I don’t care for the colors of the acrylics myself. The Auto air series has lots of great colors so you don’t have to do too much mixing. You do need to reduce the about 3:1 before using them in your airbrush.
If you can use someones compressor that is best. The paints will give you a good idea what is the best PSI to spray them at.
For lots of good inspiration I like to check out the Rusty website…they alway have lots of cool airbrush grapics, IMO.
Here is a graphic I did on a board for a friend if you want to get an idea what can be done. I did this graphic in about 15 minutes by just moving the stencil around. I made the stencil out of a plastic folder, just put a printout of my graphic underneath and cut out with a x-acto knife. This was done directly on the foam. If it was on top of the glass I would probably use Futures floor acrylic to seal it…ben
Yeah man thanks that is gonna help a lot when I got to get that stuff. Ive got a design in mind and I need to make a stencil to put on. Ive got to find out how much it all costs, and I would practice on some paper first before I go and try it on my shortboard. If anyone has any idea of where I should start and the price range I should consider, than that would be helpful. Meanwhile im sketching some examples and ill try and get a pic of what it should look like. BTW though that fishes graphic was sick.
Mike- you don’t need an airbrush to do a cool design. Using Rusty boards as an example… a high percentage of their boards are painted with spray paint. You can use stencils, tape or whatever. A really cool trick is to paint a base color, mask a design, drip liquid soap all over it, spray on a different color, when the paint dries rinse the board with water, let it dry, maybe do some marker striping and then seal the design. Here is a quick flame job I did with a can of blue Krylon and a black Posca.
