Alright, these guys are serious crappie food

[ctom]

On several occasions I have found small sunfish in a pail of crappies that had been puked up. Seldom have these small sunnies been an inch in length. In the last month or so I have been playing around with some 30mm lipless vibe blanks, generally sticking to specific color combos and not so much detail.... at least until this afternoon when I didn't have anything to do other that read or watch it rain so I mustered up the fortitude to try my hand at detail painting a couple of the small baits. These are the end result and will be headed to crappie waters a bit later in the fall. Perfect size and a darned near perfect imitation sunfish.



Click on the picture to expand it and you can see the various layers of color that go into making these critters. All colors are createx simply because they are easy to use on small formats like this.

[Muskygary]

Very nice! What all colors and steps did you use to paint these? I haven't painted any baits in a while, maybe I should fire up the compressor while it's hot this summer.

[ctom]

Its a real task getting from the white primed blank to what you see. The forward half of the bait got pearl pineapple. The back half got pearl lime with some transparent brown mixed in to tone the bright down some. I used transparent brown that was thinned down to about water consistency and sprayed it thru some web cloth across the upper sides and sides, then more brown transparent is added to the thinned paint and the side bars are done by spraying thru a fine comb. To the transparent brown I added a tiny bit of transparent green and sprayed the backs, feathering down part way on the sides. I saved this brown /green to finish. The belly got a couple passes of opaque white, then the white got some sky blue to do the gill covers. The white on the belly got a couple passes of real thin transparent yellow and the foreword portion of the yellow belly got a touch, not much, of pearl tangerine. To the saved brown/green I added a healthy shot of bronze hi lite powder [the same stuff used in plastic injection], a good dose of reducer and then transparent black, just enough black to swing the color away from what had been sprayed on the back and side feather and gave the back and sides a couple of thin coats, heat setting between the coats.

There's a ton of wash outs and tip/needle changes in there too. I heat set every color. The entire bait is dunked in seal Coat after adding the eyes. The eyes are 3mm.

I' grab a picture of the web fabris I use  and post it in a few minutes.ll

[ctom]

Here’s the mesh fabric I use seen in an embroidery hoop. It’s so mush easier to use on small baits than clamping around a larger blank. I think I paid $4.00 for a half a yard.



It’s pretty tough to see the effects of the mesh but it’s in there and it does make a difference. When this mesh is used you want the paint very thin and you’ll want to apply it in a thin coat otherwise the paint will make ridges along the fabric’s threads.
You don’t want ridges.

[Fatman]

Very Nice!!