Largemouth Bass Lure How-To

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Largemouth Bass Lure How-To
Hello. I am Mike Bromelow, owner and artist of www.muskysnax.
com, a hand crafted fishing lure company in Muskoka Canada. I
would like to show you how you can achieve a more realistic look to
your own fishing lures. More and more lakes and rivers are getting
fished harder and harder and fish do become lure shy over time. A
great way to counteract this is by making your lure presentation as
natural looking as possible. Most predatory fish feed by sight and
the stimulus of a darting baitfish (your lure) often proves irresistible to them! The first one I will demonstrate is a Largemouth Bass
rendering with some key anatomical features that will add pizzazz
to your lure.
The first step after sanding a wooden lure body smooth is to add
a coat or two of primer/sealer. In this case I used Auto Air Sealer
White. If using a plastic lure I use an adhesion promoter followed
by a few light coats of Auto Air Sealer White.
Photo 1
First we need to establish what the base color will be that will represent the outline of the scales of a fish. In this case we will use the
Auto Air Sealer White. Allow this base coat to dry before continuing.
I speed up the process by using a blow dryer on medium heat. Next
position your Bass pattern stencil over the lure making sure to have
the mouth cut outs end at the nose. I used a sharp pencil to make a
reference line along the gill plate through the stencil but you can use
the airbrush. The body scales on a fish don’t actually cover their entire head and I want the lure to look as real as possible. This reference
line is used during the next step so I can see how close I am getting
to the head while spraying the scales. Photo 2
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I have a trick to help keep the scale stencil in place. I use a metal
baking tray covered by a sheet of paper under the lure. Small rare
earth magnets are then used to hold down the stencil!
Photo 3
Now we spray the actual scales color though the mesh. For this demonstration I am using a custom light green color, which is a mix of
Auto Air Colors 4208 Emerald Green and Auto Air Colors 4350 Iridescent Brite Yellow. I purposely avoided spaying scales completely onto
the head area of the lure since it is not covered in the same large
scales as the rest of the fish.
Photo 4
After spraying I use the blow dryer to gently dry the paint. Do this after each of the following steps in this tutorial so that you can rest the
lure on the freshly painted side without damage. Carefully remove
the scales stencil being careful not to disturb the paint underneath.
Voila! You now have some great looking “scales” on your lure. If you
need to add a few more rows of scales, simply reposition the scales
stencil making sure to line up the ones you just sprayed already and
spray on some more. Photo 5
The next step is to use our Bass pattern stencil to render the markings that are prominent on a Largemouth Bass. Position the stencil
as shown making sure that the mouth lines up with the tip of your
lure. Once again I used some small magnets to keep the stencil in
place while spraying. Don’t worry if the tail end of the stencil isn’t
quite long enough as we can just reposition it later and add more
markings.
Photo 6
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I use a custom dark green paint made by adding
Auto Air Colors 4220 Deep Black to Auto Air Colors
4208 Emerald Green. The exact mixture can vary,
as the real fish are colored lighter or darker in different bodies of water. Just add drops of Deep
Black until you achieve the desired results. Once
the stencil is removed, we have some markings
that are seen on the real fish. As you can see in
the photo the stencil was a little short for this particular lure so I simply repositioned it and sprayed
more markings at the tail end and also along the
upper area of the sides. The next photo shows the
results. Photos 7+8
Next I spray more of the dark green mixture
onto the back of the lure and also add some
stippling over the back and sides. This blends the scales from the
sides into the lure’s back. I also join the sides of the mouth freehand
so that they go around the front of the lure as in real life. I sometimes use a shower curtain hook to
12. hold my larger lures while painting.
I have a curtain rod rigged up at my
painting station and can quickly
access different sides of the lures
when not using the stencils on the
flat baking tray.
Photo 9
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w w w. a u t o a i r c o l o r s . c o m
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Now I switch to the pupil stencil
hole and spray 4220 Deep Black for the pupil. Add a little reflection with
Sealer White to complete them. I chose to add some Deep Black around
the entire eye to help make it pop. If you REALLY want to get detail
oriented use an extra fine tipped gold ink marker and create a gold band
around the black pupil as seen in later photos. Photo 12
Next we need to add some fins using the eyes and fins stencil. Position
the stencil to be able to spray 4350 Iridescent Brite Yellow in
the correct anatomical locations. After drying the paint you
can add the rays to the fins with a sharp pencil.
Photo 13
After the stencil work is done you can add your own flair
to the lure with some white highlights and any other little details such as the gold banding around the black pupils, blood red gills etc. Here’s my own finished Bass as
an example. SNAX Fish Stencil Set includes: 2 Bass, 2 Blue Gill, 2 fish scales and 2 sets eyes and gills. Small and large each. Item #4820-00. SNAX Color Set, Item # 4923-00. Set includes one
4oz. each: 4001 Sealer White, 4208 Semi-Opaque Emerald Green, 4220 Semi-Opaque Deep Black 4248 Transparent Root Beer, 4350 Iridescent Brite Yellow and 4011 Flash Reducer.
[email protected]
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Now we need to add some eyes to
the lure. Use the eyes and fins stencil
and position the large eye cut out
so that the narrow shaped part faces
forward as they do on a real Bass.
It’s all about details at this point! ;)
I first spray a little Sealer White to
cover the underlying green then
spray 4248 Transparent Root Beer
for the color. Photos 10+11
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