Lenni

American Bagger magazine asked me to cover a project for them recently. The project is the customized Bagger being built by Donnie Smith and crew as a raffle bike for the Guide Dogs of America organization. At this point Rob Roehl has massaged the sheet metal, and the bike is mostly painted. What's left before final assembly is the addition of the graphics and logo, all of which gave me a chance to hang out with friend and talented painter, Lenni The Pinstriper.

The finished tank, built by Donnie Smith and crew and painted by Lenni The Pinstriper.

Though Lenni is an old-skool painter, he's not above using the computer and plotter to create the masks needed for the fine detail work like that seen here.

The starting point, the original logo and the masks created by the plotter.

The first step is to scan the original logo, manipulate that image to the correct size and then give the "print" command to the plotter. Instead of printing the image in the conventional sense, the plotter cuts the outline so the logo becomes a multi-part mask.

Here the mask is pasted to the tank and the area nearby is completely masked off.

The lettering is done separately as shown….

The end result is a hand-painted logo on each side of the tank. By using the plotter to cut the masks Lenni is able to do his work by hand, yet create a degree of precision that would be hard to match if each letter had to be painted with a brush. In this case the use of a computer and plotter is the perfect blend of old-skool and new.

…once the mask is in place Lenni pulls the top layer and the painting can begin.

Anyone who wants to see more of Lenni's work should paste his address http://www.krazykolors.net/Gallery1.htm into their browser window. Lenni will paint almost anything, from pickup trucks to motorcycles and street rods.

Once the mask is unmasked, Lenni sprays the letters in black.

Here the nearly finished logo. What's left is to finish the feathers on the other side, add a bit of pinstripe detail and pull the tape.