Category Archives: How to Paint Lures With an Airbrush

Custom Painting a Bluegill Crankbait

In the bass fishing world, the Bluegill pattern is one of the most popular crankbait patterns sold everywhere. That’s why Custom Painting a Bluegill Crankbait is a critical skill to learn if you want to sell your lures to others. Bluegill patterns flat out catch fish!

In today’s blog post we will be featuring a video lure painting tutorial from Michael Orensteen. Michael has been custom painting crankbaits and other hard body lures for quite a while now. His persistence at constantly learning new techniques, and improving his skill set has caused him to become very good at what he does!

So today he will be sharing his tips and tricks for Custom Painting a Bluegill Crankbait. Michael states right up front that painting this particular pattern isn’t nearly as hard as it looks. So, to back that claim, he shows us what it takes.

Michael does a great job of explaining how to start with a base coat and then use layers of color for a realistic look. It’s important to remember that nothing in nature is perfect. So trying to achieve perfection in your lure paint scheme isn’t necessary.

One other important point that Michael makes is that the tutorials are meant to teach methods, but not to encourage outright copying or duplication. It’s best to learn techniques and then use your imagination and experiment with variations to see what you come up with yourself.

Bluegills may look different in your area than they do in another region. So always keep that in mind when trying to mimic the natural baitfish in your area lakes, ponds and rivers. And remember that your lure isn’t going to be sitting still for the bass to examine closely. So triggering a bite is the most important thing you want to accomplish.

As always, we’ve included a list of items needed to create this type of bait and color pattern.

Enjoy the video and please be sure to share this blog post if you find it helpful!

Items used for this project:

If you enjoyed this post, please be sure to like it and share it with your friends.

And, as always, if you need any kind of lure-making supplies, be sure to visit our website, at http://lurepartsonline.com

Painting a Pike Pattern Lure

Painting a pike pattern lure isn’t something that too many lure painters or lure makers talk about. Most people tend to stick to the more popular patterns, such as bluegills, baby bass and perch.

But in areas where Pike are the prevalent gamefish, it makes perfect sense to create a lure that mimics a juvenile Northern Pike. So painting a pike pattern lure is something that lure makers for those parts of the world should learn.

Once again, today’s tutorial presenter is Paul Adams. Paul has been at this craft for a long time and has created a great video showing that painting a pike pattern lure isn’t as difficult as some might think.

So let’s get started!

Paul starts off with a Zara Spook lure body that he made from a broom handle. He has held a contest and will be painting this lure for the winner of that contest. Paul even throws in a bit of personalization for the proud winner by adding decals to the lure. Paul Adams Preparing to Paint a Pike Pattern on a Lure

Paul explains that he has given the lure two coats of 5-minute epoxy to seal the wood lure body and protect it from moisture. @ coats of white primer are then sprayed on as a base coat.

He then goes on to spray the lure body with some black acrylic ink called Liquitex. The black is used as a foundation for the remainder of the paint work. Using black prevents the white from showing through when he starts using shades of green.

Paul alternates between his airbrush and a hair dryer, making sure to keep the ink drying quickly so as to prevent any problems with it running or sagging. The black is sprayed on the entire lure body, with the exception of the belly area.

And then it’s time to start making it look more like a baby pike!

Now it’s time to put some special “tools” to use. First up is a piece of scale netting that will be used to paint the scale pattern on the lure body. This effect adds a lot of realism to the lure. White paint is used for this. And the white paint gets thinned down to prevent the scales from being too overpowering.

Scales have to be sprayed on very lightly. The paint should dry almost immediately upon hitting the surface of the lure blank. Once again, a hair dryer can be used to speed up the drying process, if needed.

After the white scales are completed, it’s time for some gold scales. And using a hair dryer to speed up the drying process is a good idea. Once everything has dried completely, then the scale netting can be removed.

More paint is sprayed onto the back and sides of the lure. This time it’s a green color. This paint is sprayed lightly and it is fairly transparent. So it allows the previously painted scales to continue to show through.

Black is then sprayed on the back of the lure and in the area where the eyes will be located. And then some more white is sprayed onto the belly area to clean things up a bit. This is necessary due to the fact that all of the other spraying kind of overlaps in the belly area and doesn’t look quite as nice as it could.

Now it’s time to grab a white acrylic marker and draw some stripes on the side of the lure. This helps mimic more accurately the coloring of a juvenile pike, versus an adult pike. And then it’s time to spray on the eyes. This is done using a piece of plastic with holes punched in it.

There are still a few minor steps left to complete this lure. But we’ll let Paul show you in the video below.

Enjoy!

Items used for this project:

If you enjoyed this post, please be sure to like it and share it with your friends.

And, as always, if you need any kind of lure-making supplies, be sure to visit our website, at http://lurepartsonline.com

How to Paint a Natural Perch Pattern Crankbait

In our last blog post we showed you how to paint the Tiger Perch pattern. For this post, we’ll be showing you how to paint a natural perch pattern crankbait. Custom lure painter Michael Orensteen will be your instructor for today 🙂

It’s no secret that natural patterns on crankbaits catch fish like crazy. Natural-looking baits are more apt to get bites on pressured lakes where bass and other gamefish see a lot of lures. So with today’s tutorial you’ll be able to airbrush a natural perch pattern on your crankbait and make it look completely natural.

Michael says that the natural perch is one of his favorite patterns to paint. If it’s done properly, it’s quite easy to do, so let’s get started!

The first thing you’ll need to do is pick an unpainted crankbait body to paint. Once you’ve chosen the lure body, you’ll need to spray a white base coat on the body, as is done most of the time.

Once the white has been sprayed, the next step will be to apply a coat of pearl white. Using the pearl white gives the bait a slight glimmer, which helps to mimic the natural, subtle sheen that fish scales have underwater. Pearl will also help give the paint more depth.

In between paint layers, always be sure to heat set the paint with a hair dryer. It only takes a few seconds to do and helps to make sure that the paint dries thoroughly before another layer is applied.

Next, the top half of the bait is painted with a coat of pearlized lime green. Michael mentions that it’s always a good idea to shake this color up really good before using it, to be sure that the pearl is mixed well. It might even be necessary to thin it out a tiny bit to help the pearl flakes flow better through the airbrush.

Once the pearl lime has been sprayed onto the top half of the lure blank, the belly will be sprayed with a layer of transparent orange. Mike explains, during this part of the process, that he always prefers to spray a couple of light coats of paint rather than one heavy coat, regardless of what color he might be using.

And, again, don’t forget to heat set each layer of paint!

After spraying the second coat of orange on the belly, another shade of green is layered onto the back of the lure. This one is called Moss Green. As this layer is applied, you can really see the overall color pattern starting to take shape!

The next step will be to add scales to the bait, using scale netting. Be sure to have something available to hold the scale netting in place while you spray the paint on. Michael suggests using small alligator clips.

The scale pattern should be very light and not too strong, so the black paint used to spray the scales should be thinned out with paint reducer so that the black isn’t too dominant. It should be just enough to show the scale pattern. Keep in mind that the scale pattern should be sprayed only on the top section of the lure, not all the way down the sides.

After drying the scales with the hair dryer, the scale netting is removed and the scales become readily visible.

And now it’s time for the stripes, to make it look like a Perch.

As with the scales, the stripes should be subtle, so the pressure for the airbrush should be adjusted down to 12-15 PSI. This allows you to spray a light dusting of paint and create subtle vertical stripes on the sides of the lure.

Michael uses a comb as a mask to create the stripes. As always, he seems to find items that are common around the house to help produce the desired look and results. Watching him paint these lines using a comb is impressive, as he pulls the comb away and the stripes look natural.

Black is then sprayed along the back of the lure to darken it up a bit, helping to blend the stripes into the back of the lure. A little black is also sprayed around the eyes and on the nose.

finished natural perch pattern crankbait And the final painting step is to spray some white under the throat of the bait. This helps to give a little contrast with the other colors and make the lure look more natural, since most fish have white on their bellies.

The final steps for this project are to add your stick-on eyes and then your clear coat.

And that’s it! Let the lure dry thoroughly, for a minimum of 6-8 hours, add your hooks, split rings and line tie and go catch some fish!

Watch the video below.

Items used for this project:

Airbrush
Lure Paint
Unpainted Crankbait Body
Stick-on Lure Eyes
Treble Hooks
Split Rings
Oval Line Tie

If you enjoyed this post, please be sure to like it and share it with your friends.

And, as always, if you need any kind of lure-making supplies, be sure to visit our website, at http://lurepartsonline.com

To check out the Lure Me In Custom Painted Crankbaits Youtube channel, Click Here

How to Airbrush the Tiger Perch Pattern

This latest blog post will teach you how to airbrush the Tiger Perch pattern on your homemade lures.

The creator of this video tutorial, Splish Splash, walks us through each and every step, from a blank lure all the way to a finished paint job 🙂

He starts off by showing us exactly what items are needed to paint the Tiger Perch pattern and then gets right into the actual painting process. The items mentioned in the video are listed below, at the end of this post.

The first step is to spray on a good base coat of white. This is pretty typical with most lure painting projects. After the white, a pearl white is sprayed on to give the bait some glimmer.

Green is then sprayed on to give the lure a good base to spray the golden scales onto. The back of the lure is then sprayed black, to give it a natural appearance.

A scale stencil is then used, as gold is sprayed onto the sides of the lure. And next, a homemade stencil is used to spray black “tiger stripes” onto the sides of the lure. And then another homemade stencil is used to spray on the gill plate and the mouth of the “fish”.

How to Airbrush the Tiger Perch Pattern - Lures on Drying Wheel And the final step in spraying is to darken the back a bit more with black paint. Once the final layer of paint is applied and has dried thoroughly, a final topcoat of epoxy is applied and the lure is placed on a drying wheel while the epoxy hardens.

The creator of the video makes it look pretty easy, but don’t get discouraged if you don’t get it quite right the first try. Like everything else, you’ll get better at it with practice.

After your epoxy topcoat has had time to harden completely, install your hooks, split rings and any other necessary hardware and go catch some fish!

Here’s the video:

Items used for this project:

Balsa Lure Bodies (in case you don’t want to carve your own)
Lure Eyes
Lure Paint
Epoxy Top Coat
Airbrush
Scale Netting

To see a great video of these lures in action, catching Northern Pike in brackish water, click here

If you enjoyed this post, please be sure to like it and share it with your friends.

And, as always, if you need any kind of lure-making supplies, be sure to visit our website, at http://lurepartsonline.com

How to Paint a Crankbait using the Crackle Method

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How to Paint a Crankbait using the Crackle Method

Ever wonder how to paint a crankbait using the crackle method?

Sit back, grab a note pad and get ready to learn this crazy new technique that will have you creating your own awesome crackle pattern crankbaits in no time.

Michael Orensteen will be your instructor today, giving you a step by step tutorial to create that distressed “crackle” look on your own custom baits.

What’s really cool is that this technique originates from people in the furniture industry. They needed a way to give furniture a distressed, antique-looking finish, so this technique was born out of necessity, allowing them to achieve the look they were trying to attain.

Michael did a great job of editing this video to keep it precise and to the point, eliminating any long sequences of ordinary painting, keeping the focus on the actual crackle technique itself.

When he wanted to learn how to paint a crankbait using the crackle method, he got with a good friend of his, who passed the info on. Michael then took that info and decided to share it with you via this awesome video tutorial.

To start, the bait is painted with a black base coat, contrary to the usual white base coat used on many other patterns. Once the black is finished, then the “crackle solution” is applied, using outlines drawn with a stencil.

The crackle medium is then applied and we’re off and running! From there, more paint is applied and a hair dryer is used to thoroughly dry each coat of paint. The steps are then repeated for each section of the lure, until the crackle finish covers the entire lure body.

Michael also shows us a set of stencils that he created himself, using vacuum formed pieces of plastic! Very cool stuff that he has promised to show us how to do in a future video.

So that about covers it. Everything else you need to know can be learned by watching the video below.

Items used for this project:

Airbrush
Lure Paint
Unpainted Crankbait Body
Stick-on Lure Eyes
Treble Hooks
Split Rings
Oval Line Tie
Crackle Medium

If you enjoyed this post, please be sure to like it and share it with your friends.

And, as always, if you need any kind of lure-making supplies, be sure to visit our website, at http://lurepartsonline.com

To check out the Lure Me In Custom Painted Crankbaits Youtube channel, Click Here