If it is done right, it looks like good hard candy, with a shine deep enough to convince you that you can swim in it. there’s shadowing, there’s symmetry, there’s a delicate touch that is involved with painting tons of steel. Everybody loves to see the finished product, but precious few care to actually put in the time and effort to make it happen and far fewer have the skill to make it look like a masterpiece instead of looking like the vehicle in question was sitting next to a DuPont paint store when a bomb went off. I don’t know what I’d rather do…study the work of a finished piece and try to figure out how the layers actually went together, or watch someone who is in the middle of painting a beauty. We’re talking many days, more mixing and blending than anybody should ever attempt, guessing and re-guessing the pattern, hoping, praying, and measuring several times over before you finally set the gun up, take one deep breath and start to lay down coats. Spray-bombing, this is not. Wild paint like what you will see here, done right, is a craft that takes years to master. Get it right, get a reputation, and you will make a living off of this. Screw up once…well…there’s a phrase that the Army taught me: “All the ‘attaboy’ compliments in the world go straight into the trash can the first time you have an ‘aw, f***’ moment.”

This isn’t just a paint video. You’ll see a neat Citroen DS and watch as they try to fix a coil for a Ford Model T, but many of you are going to want to see how this van turns out once the tape and the masking plastic starts getting peeled off. Don’t worry, it’s worth the wait. It’s almost like opening up a Christmas present!