Road to applying custom finishes starts with painting your town red - or any other color
If you are a paint technician who covets the chance to start coating showcase cars, grab your gun and start spraying. Two of the industry's top custom-finish kings say they began in body shops, steadily honing the skills - and reputations - required to apply their talents onto the sharpest of high-profile rides.
“You need basic knowledge to start with, and you need to do the body shop deal for a while,” according to Ron Fleenor, custom finish manager for the Color Horizons line at SEM Products, Inc. in Charlotte, N.C.
“I started out painting cars at a body shop, and a buddy wanted me to paint flames on his car,” he says. The job was done at no-charge, a strategy Fleenor recommends to anyone with similar ambitions.
“Grab your friend's helmet and tell him you'll paint it for nothing,” he advises. “I also went to motorcycle shops and I'd paint (scratched and dented) bikes that people had dropped” onto the pavement.
The key is to practice, practice, practice, he points out. “I still do it every day. I paint a lot of mailboxes, toilet seats and bowling pins to display my work. If anything sits still in my shop for more than 15 minutes, it will be painted by the time I'm done with it.”
Bicycles, skateboards, trash cans and refrigerators are among the items Fleenor has coated.
Thoroughly learn the gun first, he urges, then graduate to pinstriping before trying your hand at airbrushing.
Their efforts are to be chronicled on the Speed Channel's popular “Unique Whips” television show, set to run throughout the evening of Wed., Aug. 2, in conjunction with the Brickyard NASCAR race.
Fleenor painted mahogany wood grain on each side of the car as the main focal points, while at the same time blending in other creative touches, such as chrome edging and “ghosted” logos.
Learn devised a “grave robber” theme on the tailgate of the hearse while adding a more personal touch - Stewart's nickname, “Smoke” - to the hood. A SEM top-dressing product was applied to the vinyl roof, changing the color from blue to black.
As this project was to be a pleasure vehicle of sorts, a Stewart No. 20 NASCAR motif is nowhere to be found. “I had to tell them, 'We're not doing anything 'racing' with this - that's his job,'” recounts Victor Rodriguez, Unique Autosports' business manager.
Stewart, it turns out, is a big fan of “Unique Whips.” He contacted the custom house's owner, Will Castro, inquiring if the show's producers would dig tricking out the previously purchased hearse.
“Tony was thoroughly impressed” with the result, according to Rodriguez.
And although Learn and Fleenor are established professionals with nationwide followings, Rodriguez relates how he initially auditioned Fleenor's techniques: “Without seeing a car Ron had painted, I saw unconventional items, such as a helmet, a swordfish and a mailbox. I thought that if he can do this to a swordfish, what he can do for this car will look great.”
No matter what is done mechanically to a vehicle, it is the exterior surface that commands the most attention from those who gaze upon it. “The first thing they always see is the paint, and the last thing they see when they walk away is the paint,” says Rodriguez, who notes that most of the shop's three custom-work bays are used to apply special coatings to new high-end production vehicles brought in by their owners.
For a body shop technician eager to make an artistic impression, just about any item you paint can be applied toward attracting fine-finish assignments, he says. “That's your calling card. When a person wants to move from standard production to custom (applications), your work is your resume.”
Take pride in your production work while continuing to develop the more creative elements. “How good are you at spraying on clear?” challenges Rodriguez. “That's an art in itself.”
Learn your craft before taking too big a leap, he suggests. “You can't 'practice' on a celebrity's vehicle.”
Let people see what you can do daily in the shop, all the while augmenting your portfolio by painting other objects. As you improve, see if a local business person would like a custom-finished vehicle - offer to do it for free; in return you get a “rolling billboard” advertising your abilities, Rodriguez points out.
(Learn recently painted the cover art for a Megadeth compact disc; musicians in your community may desire a similar service.)
“A good way to do that (higher level of painting) is by learning from the professionals,” he says, adding that some of the best training comes from paint suppliers.
Fleenor and Learn each have a wide array of instructional offerings available to the body shop industry. “We show them a lot of the tricks of the trade,” says Fleenor. He does see the paint realm progressing, however, citing the popularity of cable TV programs dedicated to tracking the process of tricking-out vehicles.
“Body shops are starting to do custom stuff as fill-in work,” Fleenor observes. “The whole custom industry's coming back since they've had these TV shows. The kids are coming out in droves now,” he adds, referring to young adults interested in pursuing this type of career. “We're getting a whole new flock of custom painters coming into the industry who are starved for knowledge.”
