who here puts a photo finish on their lures? i see that alot of people paint them and paint them pretty but they all probably got air brushes and stencils and what not. well i suck at painting and all i have is acrylic paints and paintbrushes, so i like to do photo finishes. here is a pic of my first photo finish:

looks good

Harshman

I thought about photo finishing, but by the time I found a pic, resized, checked, resized, etc,etc, i could have one painted by hand, heh. They look good, though!

Save up, get a good airbrush (if all you can afford is a mediocre one, keep saving!!), then practice, practice, practice, and you'll have baits that look better than photo finishing in no time

i actually prefer the looks of photo finishing to painted. i am all about realism, and for example i wouldnt consider making a fire tiger lure...i just dont like the looks of it. and photo finishing is a snap! its real easy and if you could have one painted in the time it takes to find and resize a pic then you must be a crazy fast painter! ;D

Your bait looks good.  I played with photo finishes for a while, but got tired of trying to hide the seems and painting the belly and back without covering the photo.  There are guys that are very good at it.  I'm just no one of them.

Here is a little tip, get you a spool of 20ga stainless steel wire and make your line ties and hook hangers.  Looks better and holds better than the screw eyes.

yea. painting the top and bottom can be a pain...but its not too bad, specially if you have an airbrush. and i hate makin a thru wire crankbait. now those are a pain. i just epoxy the screw eyes in and they hold fine.

I'm not talking about doing a thru wire harness, the screw eyes will fail if you're putting them in balsa wood.   Twist the wire around a nail to make you hangers and line ties, there is more surface area for the epoxy to hold.  

Whittler will tell you the same info on this, and a small extra step to ensure that your baits are strong.

ok well yea i know that screweyes fail in balsa but thats ok cuz i use a hardwood to make all my biats....i use basswood.