My girl needed some makeup

That too. Maybe metard can give him the photoshop treatment.

 

Thanks man, I'll put up some dirs later (may be tomorrow).

 

Materials:
1) Mineral turpentine (general cleaning)
2) Acetone (solvent for acrylic paints)
3) Acrylic spray paint. Don't use enamel, too brittle, will crack. I got the paint at an auto parts store.
4) Clear coat. I got the same brand of clear coat as the paint, from what I read online this is highly recommended.
5) Plastic/tarp/etc to cover stuff while painting.
6) Painter's tape. I've learned that the quality of this varies greatly. I just bought the cheap blue stuff, bad idea. A friend recommended "Green Frog tape". Said it holds a nice line and doesn't take your paint off...which the blue crap did and caused me to do a lot of hand painted touch ups.
5) Brushes or paint pens. I already had brushes so that's what I used, will try pens next time. Make sure all paint is acrylic.
6) If doing in doors (garage, etc.)...a good fan for ventilation. Even with the garage door open the fumes build up fast.
7) Gloves, mask, eye protection.
8) 220 grit sandpaper (may go heavier, see below). 320 grit or higher for buffing or touch up between coats.
9) Dishwashing soap.

Prep:
1) Clean all wax off
2) Clean with mineral turpentine
3) Clean with acetone.
4) Fix any dings/cracks/etc...
5) Sand w\ 220 grit sand paper. Note: I may go a lil heavier with the grit next time, had some issues in places getting the base coat to stick well.
6) Wipe down and clean board well after sanding. I did one more cleaning with acetone as well. Critical to get the board prepped right before you proceed.

Board as it looked when I bought it...



Board with trac stuff removed and getting cleaned up...



Base coat:
1) Tape off anything you don't want base coated (fins, trac pad, etc...)
2) I did multiple thin layers of white. Note: If you make a mistake, (a drip, a glob, etc..) do NOT try to fix it until it dries, you will only make a much bigger mess. Wait until it dries, sand it down, clean it up (just wipe with dry cloth, no solvents or you will make a mess). Then repaint it.
3) Bottom I left white so I sanded it when done to get it nice and smooth. Top I didn't sand as I wanted a rougher surface for the other coats to adhere to.

Logo:
Ripped it off the internet and modified it for my tastes. Printed the image and cut out a stencil for the lettering. The crappy tape I bought came up in a couple places and pulled paint in others so I had do a lot of touch up by hand.

Once the base coat and logo were done it was on to the stripe (belt).

Base coat and logo done...



Stripe/belt:
1) Masked off the top and bottom with tape and plastic.
2) Cut squares of tape, drew a grid with a pencil, and put tape down.
3) Sprayed a couple coats of black.
4) Remove tape/mask. Again had parts come off that I had to retouch by hand.

Final coats...

Masking:
1) Masked the stripe.
2) Masked the bottom by running tape along the rails. PITA to get this somewhat even on both sides.
3) Covered the logo then used tape to create the sunburst. Cut squares and used the corners.

Here's where I went back and forth about how to do the splatter pattern. Saw some vids where they would do a pattern, let it dry, rinse off, then do the next layer. Saw others where they would do the dish soap, spray a layer, let the paint dry, leave the soap on, put on more soap, then another layer, etc. etc. I ended up doing the first one as it was the first time I'd done it and wanted to see each layer, otherwise it was an all-eggs-in-one-basket kinda thing. Now that I have a better idea of how the layer will work I will do it the second method next time. Its easier, faster, and I think will give cleaner lines.

If you do the one layer at a time approach make sure the paint is dry and make sure you get all the soap off completely. The second layer I did I thought I'd cleaned the board well after the first layer, but I guess not since almost all of it came off when I rinsed it. The others were fine but I had to rinse\dry\rinse\dry\rinse\dry the board a few times to get all the soap completely off.

So for the pattern...

You'll have to figure out what colors you want as a base and in what order. Once I had that figured out I took the dish soap (any will do, I bought the cheapest I could find) and slung it outwards from the logo mask to create an outward going pattern for the sunburst. Then I did the lower half of the top part. Did the same for the bottom with the soap. Remember that the soap will mask whatever color is under neath, so I was basically drawing white lines with the soap since the base coat was white. Once I had the soap pattern down came the first layer of paint. I did blue for the top and green for the bottom. Once I dried I washed the board (several times), then had to remask some places where the tape was coming off. Then I did another layer of soap and did the red on top and bottom. Dry/rinse/ then another fresh layer of soap and put down the black. Paint dry/rinse board and had a pretty good pattern down. I then did one more layer of soap outlining specific areas then hit those areas with whatever color to darken/thicken it up... Once I was happy with that I tool all the tape/masks off and cleaned it real good.

Wookie: Thought about using a stencil, but the lines were too thin, couldn't get a good clean cut. Thought about painting by hand, but didn't think I could get it clean enough. Ended up printing it out on sticky paper and making a sticker and stuck it on the board.

Last I went around hand touching all the areas where the stupid tape pulled paint off.

Clear coat:
Not much to say here, just lots of layering to get a good shell on.

TIPS: When painting/clear coating don't worry about the rails too much until your can starts running out and you have to hold it level. Do the rails then to use up the last of the paint in the can.

Next time I will buy the base coat and clear coat in bulk, cans get expensive real fast. I have a spayer so I'll use that next time for base coat/clear coat/large areas.

If you do hand paint, the right brush makes all the difference. Flat angled for straight lines...will prob try paint pens next time.

Next time will raise my work surface up higher so I'm not hunching over so much. Back was not happy each night...

And last but not least...USE GOOD TAPE!!!

That's pretty much it. Fire away if you have ??? and thanks for all the feedback.

 

Thanks KPD!

 

Yeah but not really super nerdy about it. Dig all the movies and some of the games (KOTOR was epic), some of the books...the whole wookie thing just kinda came together. Saw the pic online that I use for my avatar and just thought it was a cool pic. Then the wife wanted me to grow my hair and my beard out and now I got more hairs then I've had since I was in my early 20's. Beard has busted out too, if I didn't trim it out now and then I'd put those Duck Dynasty D*Ck heads to shame. So I've gotten more wookie like. Wasn't even thinking of that for the board then I stumbled across this:



Saw that and said yep, I can change Love to Wave and I got me a unique logo that just seemed to fall in place.

Of course now I'm going to have to do a Solo board. Just so when we pack up I can say, "Bring me Solo and The Wookie." And I gotta glue some fur to my wetsuit.

Nice collection man!...wish all those toys I had back in the 70's hadn't got left by the wayside, might be able to get a few bucks for em now.

And thanks for the props!

 

Thanks man! No airbrush, dirs posted above.

 

Thanks nat! Dirs are up...

 

No problem man, I appreciate honest feedback. I know what you are saying, but went there any way. Board stays out of the sun unless its in the water and figured the water would keep it cool enough. We'll see how it goes. I picked it up used and didn't break the bank so won't be the end of the world if it goes badly. I'm looking at getting something shaped, will not be giving the custom board the same treatment.

And there's a lot of things I could do better next time. First time is always a steep learning curve.