Splattering
There are several different methods to acheive the splatter effect. The common one is simply splattering with the brush itself. Before splattering, it is recommended you tape off the areas you do not wish to get paint on.
Another method requires small coffee straws. While some fling the paint off, others are known to dip one end of the straw in paint, n blow out with the other (no sipping involved, unless you want to). For the most part, these will get you thinner, smaller splatters.
To get larger more intense splatters, an old toothbrush comes in handy. Simply apply paint to the bristles as if it were toothpaste, cork the head back, and let it fly.
Splattering can also be done with an airbrush. Special tips can be purchased or you can just learn a couple tricks by accident
I suggest you practice before doing it on a shoe. Some methods may have different results pending the amount of paint you use, distance from which you fling, flick, shoot or drip, or the actual movement itself.
Speckling
Speckling is a special type of splattering paint which requires small tiny drops or “specks” of paint. By far, the best tool for speckling is the airbrush. Lower the air pressure from your compressor and test your brush to see how it’ll spray or sputter.
Glow-in-the-dark Paint
Get your hands on some glow in the dark pigment (google it. there are many many resources out there). Check before you buy though. If the pigment says it is not compatible with a waterbased solution, don’t buy it. If you do, your glowing paintjob will suffer and will slowly deteriorate after time. Once you have some pigment, get your hands on some Angelus Neutral, it’s great stuff. Based on my experience, the ratio of neutral to pigment varies based on the color of the pigment. Greens are the brightest therefore don’t require much pigment while other colors like blues, reds, and purples are dull glows so they require more pigment. Just be careful as too much pigment will result in the paint thickening and drying faster. Test it out again to see what will get you nice even coats as well as a nice glow.
As for a top coat, most work well in protecting it but some completely stop it from glowing. Places that sell the actual glow product should also have a finish themselves.
Glow in the Dark Top Coats. Rather than paint, there are glow varnishes also available.
*NOTE* In order to acheive a proper glow, the layer underneath must be light, preferably white. The way glow in the dark products work, light is required to pass through the glow layer, and then reflect back out, creating an illumination in the process. Having a dark color under your glow layer will make this impossible to occur. Even lighter colors will affect the brightness of the glow. A white layer underneath will give you the best results.
Glow fabric is another alternative. Again, search for these. They vary in material and brightness. Some fabric are rather rigid and not suitable for the daily wear of sneakers. Some are suitable for painting or print.
Safari Print
Yes, it’s simply dots, which isn’t too hard. But if you look closely at real print, it can be easily screwed up if not done right. #1, it’s not circles but rather ovals. #2, sizes vary. Just alternate big and small, and space them out evenly. For every big oval, there should be several smaller ones around it.
Working with Yellow
Yellow is a color that wishes to be utilized more, but it is a pain to work with. Yellow takes many coats alone.
Some ways to minimize yellow coats is to mix it with white. Your yellow may turn shades lighter so just keep mixing around. The white helps a little in patching up some problems and gives it a more opaque trait.
Another way is to use basecoats. White is the universal basecoat, every color will come off fine on top of it. A white basecoat works best when you’re painting over a colored surface or over black. Apply a coat or two of white, then apply yellow above it.
Other colors can be used as basecoats as well. However, they should be in the same family as the top coat.
i.e. a light green base for a top yellow, light grey base for a silver top and so on
You should pick a base that is more opaque than the top. Refer to the transparency chart for help.
Gator Skin/Supreme
To do this you need a woodburning pen or a dremel. Study the patterns of real skin. While the supreme and tiffany style are just straight rows, real skin is not. Practice varying the shapes and sizes, they are not always uniform.
You can also put real skin on. Find the proper hides. It is hard to find the perfect one bc some are extremely thick while others are really flakey and stiff like paper. It’s best to look for the perfect skin and worry about color later. You can always just soak the hide in the dye color of your choice. To apply it, just follow the same procedure if you were to attach fabric or denim.
