Crankbait Painting Tutorial How-to

[redskullz]

There was some requests for a lure painting tutorial so here we go!! I have to apologize for the variance of light sources in the pics as this lure was painted over the course of a few different days and most of the pics were taken outside.(i might do another lure using pics indoor in my office at some point where light is controlled and overall pic quality will be better)

 

Anyways...what you will need to complete lures from start to finish is:

Spraypaint- Various colours depending on the colour scheme you want. For this tutorial in painting "Frogger" i am using Colour Place White and Green, Krylon Grey Primer, Krylon Yellow, and Flourescent Green.

Small Paint brush (for painting the spots)

Popper Lure Blank

Arylic tan and darker brown (decoart, applebarrell ect)

5/32" 3d Eyes

Wire (to hang lure while wet)

Envirotex Lite Pour on Laquer

1 oz Mixing cups with measurements (or ideally no measurements on cup needed if you can get 5ml syringes)

Disposable brushes

Mixing sticks(popsicle sticks)

Drill (for rotating a single lure in the chuck on slow while curing with envirotex)

 

 

Prepping Chipped Crankbaits:

First i take off the split rings and treble hooks. To remove chipping paint from a damaged crankbait i will first soak the crank in a cleaner called Simple Green for 2 days to help soften the paint and varnish. I then take the crank out of the simple green and use the edge of an X-acto knife to chip the remaining paint off.(this step is a bit of a chore) Once all paint is off i'll wash the lure in water and let it fully dry. Lure is almost ready for paint. First we would need to tape the diving lip, but since there is no lip on a popper we get to skip that step. (yay! )

 

Painting Part 1 Krylon Grey Primer 2 coats

Undercoat.

Learn to use spray paints. Try to do smooth even coats on a scrap piece of wood overlaying your spray fan to get a feel for how much comes out of the can. Keep the can nozzle approximately 6 inches from the piece of scrap and do smooth fairly quick passes. Once you feel comfortable with the spray can hang your lure outside on a relatively calm day.(i like a piece of wire on the clothsline with nothing around to get paint on)

 

Here is a pic of all 8 baits reefrunner traded me ready for paint.(baits will be spread out before painting 3 feet or more if breezy outside)

 

Here is Frogger in his black finish that i received him in hanging on a wire:

 

Okay so now with your lure hanging on a wire i paint using smooth strokes until the lure is grey. It is better to put several lighter coats than fewer heavy coats. Holding the wire i will rotate the lure and do a couple of passes on the belly, sides and back. I'll then come up with the spray can underneath and spray the nose. Generally i like to put the paint on so it looks wet, no more, no less. Then i let the lure dry for 30 minutes. I'll repeat this process until the lure is a nice consistantly solid grey.(i had it nice and grey after 2 coats)

 

Undercoat: Colour Place White:

Do the same step as above with 3 even light coats of white. Let dry in between coats 30 minutes.

Frogger with his white undercoat 3 coats:

 

Basecoat: Krylon Yellow

Using the same technique as above i give one nice yellow coat to the whole lure. Again leave dry for at least 30 minutes before the next step.

 

Frogger with his yellow basecoat:

 

Overcoat Side and top:

This is where it gets a little tricky. What i wanted to do here is coat the sides and back with flourescent green while avoiding the belly entirely leaving the belly yellow. So i held the lure on an angle where the spray paint can fan would not hit the belly at all as i did my strokes. Once i was happy with the way the colour faded into the yellow i let dry again.

 

Flour Green Added on over yellow:

 

White Belly Overcoat:

Carefully holding the lure so only the belly will be hit by the Colour Place white Spraycan i make multiple passes over the yellow belly to make it mostly white. Let dry again for 30 or more minutes.(sorry i forgot to take a pic of this step apparently)

 

Back Overcoat:

I wanted to go with a darker green for the back and i liked the natural appearance of the colour place green so i went with that.(exact same as the white belly overcoat step but on the back only)

 

Spots Undercoat:

Being fully content with the rest of the paintjob so far the only thing frogger needs now is some spots. I used a small 00 art brush for hand painting the spots and went with a lighter tan brown as an undercoat. I eyeball the spots to make sure they are fairly uniform and paint small circles in a pattern. I do my best to paint the same pattern on the other side of the lure using the same lighter tan colour.

 

Spots overcoat: Over the tan spots i add another smaller spot using a darker brown and finish Frogger....Frogger ATTACK!!

 

 

Now that the lure is fully painted i will finish it off using envirotex lite a 2 part resin that is a great finish but is kind of difficult to use. The difficulty comes with its self-leveling properties. If the lure is not constantly rotating the resin will sag screwing your new beautiful paintjob. Rather than getting into the whole process of applying envirotex i will link you to an excellent tutorial i found very, very helpful.

 

http://striped-bass.com/striper-fishing/index.php/articles/lure-building/54-mr-pogies-epoxy-plug-finishing-applying-envirotex

One thing i will add is a fully charged drill works great for rotating a single lure while the envirotex cures. Clamp the lure in the chuck by the eyelet, coat with envirotex and tape the drill button on so its barely rotating.

 

Well that concludes this tutorial and i hope i have explained it well enough for all of you to get painting yourself!! I am going to add some other stuff to this tutorial or maybe make a new one with grid techniques, stenciled tiger stripes and other patterns, multicolour heads ect.

 

 

Edited May 28, 2011 by redskullz

[Rattletrap2]

Great Job! Thanks for taking the time to post this!

[redskullz]

Would many be interested in an expansion of the tutorial to include stencils, multicolour bodies, scales ect?