Jen Kravassi Part II – Jekyll Returns
Has your favorite lure been discontinued? Do you dream of resurrecting or replicating it? Have you ever thought of getting a custom paint job? Jen Kravassi can make you a more confident and competent angler. In today’s follow up to last week’s interview, she tells us all about what goes into custom bait painting.
HPFC: Why should someone consider a custom paint job on their lures?
Jen Kravassi: Lots of reasons. This is the biggest group of customers that I get, and that’s through the last 8 or so years. Many are tournament anglers. For example, they’ll come to me and say that a lure company has discontinued their favorite pattern and ask if I can paint it, or need an edge in a new pattern if they’re fishing a highly pressured body of water.
There's lots of patterns out there that maybe the fish haven't seen, something that gives an angler, whether they're a weekend warrior or full time pro, a little bit of an edge. That angler is buying confidence. Everybody's got a favorite lure or a favorite color, whether it's a Tennessee Shad or yellow perch, there's something in an angler’s tackle box that they go to again and again and again. And nine times out of ten that's going to be something that they're going to want customized, modified, or re-invented in a new variation.
HPFC: How can that consumer tell whether it's a job well done?
Jen Kravassi: The short part of that is that the lure looks good to them, that the clear coat is not yellowed or cloudy and that there's no bubbles in it. You want it to look a few notches above factory lures, clean lines and paint that won’t fade out. One of the things that we've seen when I've had customers ask me to repaint is that either they've tried to paint it themselves, or they've had somebody else paint it and the clear coat or the epoxy went on before the paint job was completely dry. And it looks like a bait that sat on somebody's dashboard in the Mojave Desert for a couple of weeks. It's got bubbling, it’s got some cracks and some stress fractures. As far as the pattern is concerned, that's in the eye of the angler, they're going to know right away that's something that they want (or not). Now as far as the mechanics of it, the bait’s got to swim like it did before the custom painter got it, and it HAS to look like a polished product.
HPFC: Who is your typical customer?
Jen Kravassi: Twenty years ago, I would have said that the average angler would have been a guy between the ages of 25 and 45. Today there's no such thing, it could be a 12-year-old girl that wants to buy something for her dad, or maybe she's taking up fishing for the first time. It could be any age. I’ve painted for retired vets and wounded warriors, for women that are on the trail, there really is no identifier anymore because fishing has really exploded as a sport over the last 15 years.
HPFC: How can that painter ensure that he or she doesn't compromise the lure’s action when it's complete?
Jen Kravassi: That's a great question. If it's a crankbait, a one-piece bait, you want to make sure that you don't gum up the eyelets and that the hooks swing correctly. You want to make sure you have some sort of weight scale. I weigh the bait before I start painting it and I weigh the bait after I am finished painting it. Some of the baits like 2.5 crankbait or a lipless, it’s not a big deal because usually it's the bill and or the line tie that effect action, not the overall weight (paint and clearcoat add minor amounts of weight in grams), but I still check before and after, regardless of what it is.
If you are working with a jointed bait like a swimbait then you want to make sure that you don't gum up the joints, the pins or the eyelets. You don't want to heavily spray OR clear coat the joints because it won't swim right, and it’s a booger to correct once it’s been messed up.
HPFC: Who are some of your favorite painters and what do you like about their work?
Jen Kravassi: As far as what I like about another painter’s work, I love originality and uniqueness. Most artists tend to have their own style whether it's Big Gus on the West Coast, (he's also a massively accomplished tattoo and mural artist). There’s also Mike Russell, Bill Barton, Gerald Novick, TK Stanley, Kelly Barefoot, Josh Balogh, Daniel Caricaburu-Lundin, TJ Hatfield, Pete Carter at Reckless, Amanda Wood, Michael Orensteen and Christa Mazich (owner at Colorado Custom Lures). That might sound like a lot but really it isn’t in the scope of how big this industry has gotten. All of them are hands down the best of the best. Cream of the crop. One thing that's frustrating is when you get a customer that asks you to paint a custom pattern that another artist painted. I'm not just talking a shad pattern but the exact style. And that's a line you shouldn’t cross, you NEVER screw over another artist in the community, not if you want to be respected. That drives us all crazy, but I’ve seen it happen, especially with newer painters. There’s a difference between being influenced by someone you admire, and straight up ripping them off.
HPFC: What are your favorite patterns you've painted, and some that you don't like to work on?
Jen Kravassi: Some favorites that I've done throughout the years have been for specific types of baits. There is a big group up North, the musky and walleye anglers. They love wild style, bold colors and tend to request very original abstract patterns. My all-time fave are the swimbaits we donate to Autism Awareness every April. Dave Mercer has one, and John Crews raised $1,000 on his auction this past April from my custom 8” Bull Shad Glide. Big Gus auctions customs from lots of painters each year as well. Anytime I can give back and help someone, it makes everything I do worth it. Some really cool ones that I've painted? I had a client ask me to do a Stormtrooper from Star Wars, and The Mandalorian. Man, I love to do stuff like that! Some of the patterns that's given me difficulty, aside from shad, I think getting a yellow perch to really look realistic was probably one of the hardest, but I think I'm finally getting it.
HPFC: What's the best way for someone to learn how to paint lures?
Jen Kravassi: (laughs) Watch my YouTube videos.
HPFC: Where do you get your supplies and do different painters tend to have different brands and tools?
Jen Kravassi: There's a lot of places to get supplies these days. It didn’t used to be this way. But there's various companies online without going into naming all the different places. Just type in “airbrush supplies” in a search and you’ll get a bunch. Brands and tools, I think a lot of that has to do with the level of the painter. If you're a beginner, some of the most common stuff out there are the Master Series airbrushes, the staple go to that a lot of folks have is an Iwata airbrush, they are out of Japan, but they're on the west coast here in the states as well. But there's several different places and different types of tools that airbrush artists can use. I think that's more specific to a painter than anything else, to each their own style.
HPFC: What should the consumer expect to pay? And what is the turnaround time?
Jen Kravassi: That's going to vary and it's hard to answer that question, because I can only speak for myself, but if I do, it could set the wrong expectation of other artists. I'm a little bit different in that, this is something that I do full time. There are some standards on swimbaits, people charge X amount of dollars per inch, to do a swimbait. Let's say if it's a Bull Shad 6 inch bait, then you're basically looking at five inches of actual resin bait and roughly a one inch bill. It depends on the pattern, the ability of the painter, and how long the painter has been in the industry. It's really difficult and I don't think that I would want to put a price point on what somebody might pay, at least for swimbaits. Crankbaits are a little bit different. I've seen them go from $10 for a square bill up to upwards of $40. The more elaborate, the more layers, the harder the pattern. A lot of things come into play with that.
With turnaround time, a lot of it goes to how much volume of business the person does. Like with guys like TK Stanley and Bill Barton, they work full time jobs and then they're building baits, and they have a business that's reputable that they've been at for a while. So the more demand an artist is in, the longer the turnaround time, if you have a younger artist that's up and coming and they're doing really good work, you're probably going to be looking at a couple of weeks versus average turnaround time (mine for example) anywhere from 60 to 90, sometimes 120 days, from the time it's paid for until the time it gets out the door, because of other obligations as well. There has to be an understanding, you have to make sure your client knows that, that they're not coming into that blind and giving you money, and then all of a sudden, it's like three months, and they're like, “Where the heck's my bait?” You have to be upfront with your customer.
HPFC: Let's say you're doing something for yourself – a 5-inch bait, what goes into it?
Jen Kravassi: If it’s one bait for myself start to finish, I can finish the paint in 30 minutes to an hour, doesn't matter what the pattern is, but the process in prep, going up to painting, and afterwards, clear coating is the longer period of time. Prep is usually about a day and then about an hour to paint. I'm saying an hour to paint because I've been doing it a long time, it used to be much longer. Clear coat, you do with three layers of automotive clear coat, so two days. That is standard for anything because you don't want the paint to come off the bait, you want the customer to be able to use that bait repeatedly, especially if they're throwing swimbaits. That’s not to say that if they hit it against the dock or a sea wall they're not going to chip it. That's always possible. But just in general use, you want that paint to last a long time because they've paid a good amount of money for a product they expect to be able to use more than twice.
HPFC: What's the most you've ever spent on a swimbait?
Jen Kravassi: Over two hundred dollars. It was a Japanese custom-painted Johnny Rat, which is a wooden rat bait but it was custom painted so I paid a little extra for it.
HPFC: When you fish do you have more confidence in a uniquely painted lure?
Jen Kravassi: Sometimes. I think it goes back to conditions, what area I'm in. I think that a custom-painted bait that is uniquely painted is going to give the angler an edge. When conditions can be a little bit tougher. When that bite is a little bit harder to get. That's when you want that edge, at least for me, and you're probably going to get 50 different anglers that’ll answer that question 50 different ways.
HPFC: What's the single paint job you are most proud of?
Jen Kravassi: The ones that I've taught others to do. I get photos and emails all the time of somebody saying, “Jen, I watched your YouTube video and I tried to paint that pattern and this is how it turned out.” There is nothing cooler than seeing somebody that I've been able to help, paint something, turn around and then go catch a fish on it. You know, if I can help even one person do something that they like to do, maybe help them get better at it, then I'm doing all right.
HPFC: How do people get in contact with you?
Jen Kravassi: The easiest way to find me is on YouTube. On there I’m “Jekyll Productions” please subscribe, like and comment (laughs). My channel has over 800 videos. I've been doing this since 2012 so some of them are old and cringe worthy lol, back from the very beginning. I think the very first video that I have on there is from back in my musician days at a big venue in Norfolk, VA. But I would say 750 of them are current and either teaching videos or fishing (both conventional and fly fishing). On Facebook and Instagram you can find “Jekyll Bait Company” and “Jen Kravassi”. On Twitter it’s just Jen Kravassi. I try to be accessible to everyone, and I still try and answer as many questions and emails as I can. But please be patient. I get hundreds if not thousands of messages across multiple platforms a week.
