Paint and Body Tech - Airbrushing With Attitude

If a custom truck was broken down into a pie chart with each modification representing a slice, the largest pieces of the pie would be paint and body and suspension. A custom paintjob has the ability to make or break a truck. Awesome suspension and interiors are cool, but if the truck lacks an overall appealing paintjob, there goes the Best Of trophy. Dave Timm's GMC is lifted high on 40s, but what really catches your eye is the multiple colors of paint with intricate airbrushing all over the truck. Jeff Schroeder of Attitude Airbrushing in Springfield, Illinois, is responsible for the tricked-out paint scheme. He shared with us how he transformed a stock, white Sierra into the cover truck you see here.

If you have to choose between paint and TVs, go with paint every time.

After	Arriving at the Attitude Airbrushing...        read full caption Arriving at the Attitude Airbrushing paint shop, the '06 GMC was as stock as they come. Whereas white is the most popular vehicle color in the world, it is not magazine-worthy. Jeff Shroeder and truck owner Dave Timm had a remedy for that.	Jeff began the custom paint...        read full caption Jeff began the custom paint process by washing the truck with warm, soapy water. Then he removed the bumpers, handles, mirrors, and moldings. Next, he wiped the truck down with RM 300 wax and grease remover. After repairing any imperfections, such as rock chips and dents, the truck was scuffed with 3M Hookit II 800-grit sandpaper, then the truck was blown off with compressed air and wiped with a tack cloth. He then taped off the doorjambs, glass, and the undercarriage.
RM Diamont Frost White was...        read full caption RM Diamont Frost White was then sprayed over the appropriate areas. Jeff then took on the daunting task of laying out the graphic design using 3M 1/8-inch green fine line tape. Each graphic was laid out to make sure the flow of the graphics had a smooth transition around each of the panels.	Using RM Suzuki Z4A Sky Blue...        read full caption Using RM Suzuki Z4A Sky Blue Metallic with CB47M Blue Pearl, blue streaks above the graphics were airbrushed to give the design a sense of flow and direction.	Once the blue was sprayed,...        read full caption Once the blue was sprayed, Jeff masked off the areas that would remain for the yellow graphic. After weeding out the tape, Jeff applied the RM WA5456 yellow base graphic. Jeff then mixed CB34M Violet Pearl and CB74L Bright Copper Pearl, both from the RM Diamont mixing bank, with DB86 Candy Apple Red, from the RM Carizzma line, and created a streaking pattern on top of the yellow.