House of Kolor or Createx Illustration paint?

[kronek67]

I know it is an apples to watermelons comparison, but wanted to get some feed back. I'm getting ready to do some serious practice and start painting. I have a good idea which route I need to go but wanted to get your opinion first.

My intension from the beginning is to use HOK paints to do my artwork on items such as motorcycles, cars and R/C bodies. Originally I was planning to use Createx as practice since it was cheap. As I have been on the forum, I realized that to get the results I want I would be better off upgrading to Createx Illustration instead. Well at this point, it no longer makes it cheaper than HOK. It is a 2$ difference for 8 ounces.

So here's my question, since cost is no longer a factor, should I practice with the same paint I plan to paint with? Seams like a no brainer to me, but there may be things that I'm not considering. Such as, I'll be practicing on paper. Will HOK give me accurate results on paper or should I use Illustration for paper and HOK for the rest?

I look forward to all your feedback.

 

[Oddball]

I've always avoided HoK because of the health issues!

 

[Mr.Micron]

First question, where are you painting at?
You house? in an attached garage ? detached garage?
What are the local laws on using urethane paints for your area?
These are thing that you need to inform us of when asking this type of question.
Do you have a spray booth with filter system?
Any urethane is a health hazard not only for you but for your neighbors as well .
I understand you want to paint automotive / bikes as a goal but do it safely .

I always recommend to learn on what you plan on using . So if you plan on using only urethane then learn on it.
I do use HOK , and Wicked but I do have a shop set up for it.

 

[kronek67]

I was thinking about making a small spray booth on my pouch or carport, vented and filtered. Maybe about 8ft by 8ft. It will be sealed separate from my house. I do plan to use the proper automotive mask as well. Not a dusk mask. There is an automotive paint shop two blocks from my house, but I can check local laws to see if there is anything else I need to think about. I also have an automotive paint supply shop across the street, they should know the laws and restrictions.

Taking this into account, will Createx Illustration need the same kind of set up or would it be ok set up on the porch with a fan that pulls the fumes away from me and through a filter then directed off the porch away from my house? I still need to look into different filter materials for this. Could Createx Illustration be used indoors with the proper ventilation and filtration with an exterior exhaust?

I'm glad you mentioned the neighbors. I was not thinking about my neighbors around me as far as the fumes, but that is a good point. I would defiantly need to contain or filter it properly. I don't want to cause myself or anyone else health issues. I don't have an issue taking the time and extra expense to set things up right from the start.

 

[Mr.Micron]

Createx illustration or wicked does not need all the filters , I still use the same spray mask with either urethane or water base , It just makes it easier for my old brain to not screw up and end up with rainbow lungs.

Createx can be used indoors , They do it at the malls all the time.
But better safe then sorry , I hate to see folks end up paying fines or have health issues for not taking the extra time to ensure safe practices . Trust me I have learned many lessons the hard way so I am glad you had thought about a booth and filter system.

 

[wmlepage]

To practice, 2 oz bottles are more than enough, wait to get larger bottles for when you need them.

I use The illustration paint a lot, and I have the same bottles I bought a year ago. Yes I use auto air and wicked too along with it. My whole bike is painted with AA, wicked and illustration, topped with HOK clear.

 

[kronek67]

I'm defiantly building a fully enclosed paint booth for painting motorcycles or other larger items that require the use of larger paint guns. I have been looking at filter systems and airbrush paint booths. I noticed a lot have a 3 filter system to remove about as much as you can. I'm thinking about building an airbrush paint booth and would like to get your opinion on if you think it would be adequate for urethane paint.

Here is what I'm thinking. It is a bench top design. It would be about 4-5 ft wide. 3 ft deep. About 4 ft tall. It would have 6" returns on the sides and 8-12" return on the top. Probably put doors on the front so I can close it up when not being used. It will have a 3 filter system and a ventilation fan large enough to pull all of the overspray through it but not cause air to noticeably blow across the work space. Just don't want any of the overspray to exit out the unfiltered front. I would of course wear a spray mask.

This is a setup I would like to use even if I use Createx Illustration or Wicked, but hope it would be adequate for HOK too. Only airbrushes would be used in it. No paint guns. This would also be for small items and an easel for practice or flat paintings such as on paper.

I like what you said about wearing a mask no matter which paint you use. That's a good idea.

 

[kronek67]

To practice, 2 oz bottles are more than enough, wait to get larger bottles for when you need them.

I use The illustration paint a lot, and I have the same bottles I bought a year ago. Yes I use auto air and wicked too along with it. My whole bike is painted with AA, wicked and illustration, topped with HOK clear. View attachment 31650

Nice bike. The 8 oz of paint was not just for practice. It was more of to get a better price and if it is the same paint that I will use for my paintings, then the extra will not be wasted. I'll be starting out in mono tones so I will probably use a lot of black. Illustration and HOK is only about $2 difference to go from 2 oz to 4 oz. The other 4 oz would be adding intercoat clear to HOK to make it transparent.

 

[wmlepage]

Guess it then comes down to wether you want to use a solvent paint or not.

 

[Immortal Concepts]

Urethane gets more expensive faster. Reducers, sg100, pearls, additives. I mostly work with kandy and it's $65 for a pint. You really need to check with the local laws. You have to have certain filters, explosion proof everything, fire system etc etc. Even if you can afford all of that, then you run into zoning issues. You can't just open a paint shop or have a booth at your house because you own the property. Just like buildings have to be commercially zoned, paintbooth is no exception. Osha constantly changes their rules. I had a fully 100% legal massive shop and a $40,000 paintbooth. Ended up getting shut down because of some new rule I didn't know about that the outside of the booth had to be enclosed as well at the mixing station. In my haste I quickly moved my mixing bank into an office I didn't use and they still got me for "open flame" hazard because I had employees who smoked and would walk by the room. Now my shop is a freaking antique store and my booth is still in there being used as a godamn box storage. Honest opinion, stick with a waterbased system unless you are dealing with high end clients as I used to. Cost of waste disposal and everything else will eat you alive and Florida is pretty strict with all the retirees around. Also hok is turning into junk anyways. I just use their sg100 and kandies sometimes. The laws are trying to shift to a complete urethane ban in the states with the exception of body shop owners. Eventually you won't be able to even step into a auto paint Store unless you have a business license. Don't get me started on all the insurance and crap you have to deal with. My overhead for a legal shop even though was worth over $800,000 annually , destroyed my profits and I was in massive debt just from trying to stay legal. Now i just use other people's shops or their garages.pure profit and not my problem if the area is legal since I don't own the property. Well that's just my grumpy 2 cents .

 

[kronek67]

Thanks for all of the feedback. These are some of the things I was not thinking about. For now, the paintings are really for me, not clients so I don't really want to get into the whole legal issues just to paint for myself. The candies are the main thing I wanted to use and thought I would stay with all HOK. Looks like it may be too much of a hassle to start right now, but I'll still look into the regulations just incase. I have a paint shop two blocks from my house, so I may be able to rent their booth when I need to paint something like my motorcycle. Sorry to hear about your shop. Sounds like you went through a lot. I don't want to end up loosing my house or get fine outrageous amounts that I can't afford.

Kind of makes me wonder how people are making paint booths in their garage. Maybe it's because they just have not been caught. Some of the booths I'm seeing are using nothing but house air filters when painting cars. That just does not seam like enough filtration to me. Maybe as intake but not exhaust.

Thanks for the input and I'll keep checking the laws and requirements before making any decisions., but sounds like I may be going with illustration and wicked.

 

[kronek67]

Immortal and Mr Micron, thank you. You got me looking into this a little more than before. I have been checking EPA regulations. From what I'm seeing, the regulations don't apply to what I'm looking to do at the moment. They are recommended for safety reasons though. When I get into painting for other people, I will have to go through all of the inspections to set up shop legally. I will probably just try to work out a deal with a local shop already set up for automotive painting.

I'm still planning on building the paint booth I described above. If I use the right filters, it will even meet EPA regulations for painting with HOK for small items. Of course material storage and disposal is a different story.

As I have been researching this, I realized that some of the items I want to paint will benefit from using HOK paint. However, a lot of my planned paintings will not need to be painted with HOK. So I think that I will use Illustration and Wicked to get started and do most of my paintings. I will also build and use the spray booth I described above to handle the overspray. This will also allow me to safely bring the paint booth inside during bad weather. Then when I go to paint something that requires Kandy paint I can set the booth up outside to use HOK paint. That or build a booth for each.

Thanks for all the help and input.

 

[Immortal Concepts]

Tons of people have shops both at home and a business that aren't legal and fly under the radar. I've got a friend who has a shop and been there for 3 years and never been inspected. He just has a fan to blow it outside. My bread and butter was collision repair so I had everyone up my ass always inspecting and dealing with insurance companies. It's really hard these days to go full custom and not have a steady flow of crap work to keep food on the table. I know a lot of pros have kind of changed their strategies. Even craig Fraser isn't full blown customs anymore and is into tattooing now I beleive. People just aren't spending what they used to. Just 4 years ago I was making upwards of $10,000 a paintjob. Now i can't find anyone who will pay over a grand for just a basecoat. I guess people still think paint grows on trees and we paint for fun and don't expect to get paid.

 

[Mr.Micron]

Tons of people have shops both at home and a business that aren't legal and fly under the radar. I've got a friend who has a shop and been there for 3 years and never been inspected. He just has a fan to blow it outside. My bread and butter was collision repair so I had everyone up my ass always inspecting and dealing with insurance companies. It's really hard these days to go full custom and not have a steady flow of crap work to keep food on the table. I know a lot of pros have kind of changed their strategies. Even craig Fraser isn't full blown customs anymore and is into tattooing now I beleive. People just aren't spending what they used to. Just 4 years ago I was making upwards of $10,000 a paintjob. Now i can't find anyone who will pay over a grand for just a basecoat. I guess people still think paint grows on trees and we paint for fun and don't expect to get paid.

Craig is still full blown customs but just not working there much the way I understand it. He teaches classes and is still learning tattooing. But he said people are not spending the big bucks like they use too.
It is funny how most people think you do not have to do nothing more then just paint the car/bike . You end up walking them through all the prep work that has to be done before paint can even go on their vehicle .
But my bottom line is I will not quit my day job painting is just when the work shows up other wise I work a full time job for a university and run a lawn service on the side.
Rich folks still do not want to more grass. LMAO

Like Justin I have a few friends who do run body shops that I can use for free (as long as I bring my own paint) and they will even have their clear guy do the clearing for me.
It is good to get in with the local shops . trade work out for use of their shop saves you a ton of money.

 

[kronek67]

Most of my painting will be just for me. I might paint a few R/C bodies or Helmets for some extra money, but people are not wanting to pay for it. So I may only be painting the R/C bodies for my nephew. I did want to get into custom painting as a side business, but I probably won't have time. Painting cars and motorcycles will mostly be for me or a friend. If I have time, I'll talk to the local shops about doing custom paintings for them, but there are a few well know custom painters around here that people normally go to like Chris Cruz.

My painting will be split between personal and for my new clothing company I'm launching the beginning of 2015. For the clothing company, Designs will be painted on to sheets of metal or other smooth surfaces. Digitally photographed and then printed onto the fabric to be cut and sewn into clothing. Now that I have thought about it, this does not need to be painted with HOK. It will mostly be painted mono-tone in black and white. Then the customer will choose the colors. Basically it will be telling the printer to use say red instead of white. It is a completely custom clothing line and that is where my profit painting will come from. Paint a design once and sell it repeatedly. I have been working on this for a year and a half. Now I'm at the point where I need to get serious about painting. I just want to do it right from the beginning. I want to make sure I'm using the right paint from the start and have the right safety precautions in place. Practice does NOT make perfect. Perfect Practice makes Perfect. No point in trying to learn with a crappy airbrush or paint, fighting them and not knowing if the mistakes are mine or the paint / airbrush. With a good airbrush and good paint, I can see what I need to work on.

At this point I'm looking to start with Createx Illustration and an Iwata HP-CH. When I start painting things like R/C bodies for my nephew, I may look at Wicked and Auto Air as an alternative to HOK, but will still use HOK to paint my Motorcycle and helmet. The design I came up with requires kandy and a mastery of painting FUR. That one will be a challenge, but so worth it.

Thanks again.

 

[Mr.Micron]

I will look forward to seeing the line of clothing you come out with.

 

[Bossman]

How much have these "wraps" hurt custom painting?
I've read people with good airbrush work are being asked if it's "decals".

 

[Immortal Concepts]

How much have these "wraps" hurt custom painting?
I've read people with good airbrush work are being asked if it's "decals".

Nothing to do with this thread, but the average half wrap costs $1,200 and full wraps upwards to $3,500 or more. Take a full detailed high res wrap. Would take weeks, maybe months to paint, and cost upwards of $10,000 or more. Wraps are done in usually a couple hours, can be mass produced to exact specifications and no differences between the "art" on them for an entire fleet. Also can be removed with little to no damage to original paint so it can be sold as stock with no extra fees over paying a couple grand to repaint the vehicle to factory again if it was painted on.

 

[kronek67]

The clothing line will launch the beginning of the year. I hope to have it going before spring break. I will post the designs as I paint them. All designs will be hand drawn or airbrushed. No computer generated art. I already have 5 planned out with 3 variations on three of them. Just need to bring my airbrushing up to speed.

For my airbrush booth, building materials have gone way up and I don't want to make two booths. So I have decided to get a DIY 8'x8' wood shed from Lowes and make it into an airbrush paint booth. This keeps it completely separate from my house. When I move, I can take it with me too. Even though it is not required, I'm going to set it up to meet all EPA requirements of a commercial paint booth. This way I can safely paint with HOK as needed. And if I decide to take on small jobs later such as helmets or motorcycles, I'll all ready be set up to go. I'll post pictures and a description of how I make the paint booth.

 

[kronek67]

Nothing to do with this thread, but the average half wrap costs $1,200 and full wraps upwards to $3,500 or more. Take a full detailed high res wrap. Would take weeks, maybe months to paint, and cost upwards of $10,000 or more. Wraps are done in usually a couple hours, can be mass produced to exact specifications and no differences between the "art" on them for an entire fleet. Also can be removed with little to no damage to original paint so it can be sold as stock with no extra fees over paying a couple grand to repaint the vehicle to factory again if it was painted on.

Wraps have their purpose, but I hate it when people try to pass it off as airbrushed. I would personally rather see a bad airbrush paint job than a wrap on a custom vehicle.