The VALOR bike is so much more than just another paint job. Mike has put hours and hours of thought and research into the backgrounds of each and every soldier who is portrayed on the bike. Because this has been such a meaningful project, we did quite a bit of filming to capture the emotion and meaning behind each mural.
I will update this thread with each new clip as they are edited
On the bench right now, Mike is working on a VERY SPECIAL project for Marc Fantich, a client from Texas. The HD Bagger is being transformed into an American tribute to Medal of Honor recipients.
There is a lot of research and history behind this project – and you can read much of it on our forums at LearnAirbrush.com -
Pete LeClaire’s “Winged Defender” came home from the Thunder in the Rockies Show with the prestigious title of BEST PAINT!! Judged against 99 other entrants, this beauty received the highest honor. BIG CONGRATULATIONS go to Pete and to Mike for the collaborative masterpiece.
This was Mike’s afternoon project. The owner of this new Honda Gold Wing was looking for a little something to dress up his dresser and make it a bit more “custom.” The pearl white and chrome color scheme was highlighted with silver and graphite pinstripe accents around the whole bike. A quick and easy customization!!
We just got Nick’s bagger boxed up and shipped, another Super Secret Charvel project is off to Corona and several other small projects have been completed and picked up. Time for the next round of work! Ha. Up now we have yet another bagger – a 2 tone with tribal graphics – an old school chopper, a Gold Wing in for a Pin Stripe job and Mike’s Mortal Sin Guitar ready for paint. Unfortunately we also have Pete LeClaire’s bike back in for repairs after an unfortunate incident during it’s recent photo shoot for Hot Bike magazine.
Bagger in for 2 tone tribal graphics
Bob’s Gold Wing is in to get dressed up with some pin stripe and scroll work:
Mike finished up the artwork and striping on Nick’s bagger and it went in the clearn booth for the finishing! I will have a little video to go along with this in the next few days. Just a little fun project for me. he he he.
Here are some images from the booth. I will update this with more images after wet sanding and buffing.
Mike is currently working on another paint job for a repeat customer, Nick Geiger. Nick is the owner of the Skull Glide Two Tone Bagger built by Klockwerks that garnered quite a bit of industry attention last year.
As you can imagine, the costs to custom paint an entire bagger can be staggering, especially when the pieces that you want painted top 20-30. For this particular paint job, Nick wanted to give his Harley Factory job a real custom look, without starting a paint scheme from scratch. After establishing the budget that he wanted, Mike and Nick worked through a bunch of ideas that would be added to the new, existing paint. This allowed the budgeted dollars to go to artwork, and keep prep and paint time to a minimum.
Here is the first stage of artwork. Mike is adding fire to the black areas of the paint scheme, with skulls appearing throughout the flame licks. He will also be adding pinstriping and “MAYBE” some gold leaf. That decision will be made as the paint progresses. Some more elaborate artwork will be placed on the ferring. Stay tuned for more images!
This weekend was the annual Denver Motorcycle Show & Swap. It is a show that has been going on here in Denver for like 35 years and is one of the largest mc swaps in the country. Last year we fell into a spot on the main level, in the coveted front of the building, and the guys who run the show have let us keep that spot for as long as we want it.
The show was all day Saturday and most of Sunday. We had a 20′ x 10′ booth and did a stripped down version of our typical set up. We had a lot of prints that sold quite well and the place was PACKED all day Saturday. Although you never know what you are going to get out of these shows, it’s a numbers game. I will say that we definitely drew the numbers.
Normally Mike would do a painting at a show like this, but since it is indoors, packed and short, he opted to pinstripe. It was a very good choice. The striping went over really well and he had a crowd around him most of the time and all the panels sold out from under him. Unfortunately I had the camera with no memory card Saturday, so all the pictures are from Sunday only – after all the action.
Sunday morning, despite his hung-over rock star state (Citizen Pain had to play out Friday and Saturday nights), Mike participated in a Pin Stripe Panel Jam Off. The artwork was then raffled off for some good cause.
Pete LeClaire’s bagger was in the show. It was absolutely stunning and was head and shoulders above anything else in the show, at least in my opinion. In the end, the bagger took Third. Not sure what to think about that. Check out the assembled pictures of the beauty!
This beautifully bright Orange and black 2 Tone bagger recently left the shop and will be in the Bike Show at the upcoming Denver Motorcycle Show and Swap. You will see some more images of this beautiful custom in our Show Report next week.
