Decoy painting project with the kids
Contributors to this thread:Turkey
From: Ridge Wraith
03-Apr-16
With a few weeks still to wait for any turkey hunting in my home state of IL, I decided to get the kids into the action a little early on a painting project.
From: Ridge Wraith
03-Apr-16
Out of the box, it seemed the decoy paint quality was a little... meh.
From: Ridge Wraith
03-Apr-16
With a little help from the twins, some cheap paint from Hobby Lobby and a leap of faith, here is the finished product.
From: Ridge Wraith
03-Apr-16
If anyone cares to read further, here are some pics of the process.
From: Ridge Wraith
03-Apr-16
The paint I used was metallic acrylic (folk art brand) I used antique copper, pure gold, amethyst, peridot, and metallic black.
From: Ridge Wraith
03-Apr-16
For any of the feather areas we were going to paint, I put a base coat of metallic black down with a medium fan brush. Since I'm horribly colorblind, I turned it over to the kiddos to add the color based on pictures of real turkeys we looked at on the tablet.
From: Ridge Wraith
03-Apr-16
To add some texture to the fluffed feathers on the back of the turkey where it is sometimes flocked, I used a piece of this fabric. I have no idea what it's called, it came as a liner from some fancy tea I bought while in China. I painted it black with some plastic paint and trimmed to fit the back of the decoy.
From: DeanMan
03-Apr-16
Great job guys!great idea for family project.Good luck on your Turkey season Ridge Wraith.
From: Ridge Wraith
03-Apr-16
I applied this fabric to the decoy using some 3M VHB tape.
From: Ridge Wraith
03-Apr-16
A few more pics of the finished product.
From: IAHUNTER
03-Apr-16
Now, that's cool!
From: Ridge Wraith
03-Apr-16
A better view of the textured back.
From: HUNT MAN
03-Apr-16
Looks great. Way to get the boys involved . Hunt
From: Ridge Wraith
03-Apr-16
A close up of the back. I think it turned out pretty well. The material on the back shines a little from the front view and is dull from the back due to the grain of the fabric. I think this might add an additional touch of realism over the flocking which looks dull when viewed from all angles.
From: WV Mountaineer
03-Apr-16
I have never even contemplated doing this. Of course, I don't use decoy's either. But, they did great! Awesome job of getting the kiddo's involved.
God Bless men
From: hawkeye in PA
03-Apr-16
Very nice! The boys did a great job.
From: Drahthaar
03-Apr-16
Looks great, looks like the boys had a good time. Forrest
From: midwest
03-Apr-16
Looks great!
From: trkyslr
03-Apr-16
Kyle looks good!!!
From: Ridge Wraith
04-Apr-16
Thanks for all of the positive commments. We had fun doing it and can't wait to get a bird into the decoy.
I guess I forgot to mention the obvious that I used a black fine tip Sharpie to put the black tips back onto each feather after the kids painted them.
I also added some trimmings from a used black plastic broom to enrich the look of the cheesy spinnerbait skirt beard. I'll finish it off with some clearcoat before the season starts.
From: t-roy
04-Apr-16
Very nice.
Looking forward to the "Hero" shots from the group!
Good luck, stay safe, & be sure & posts some pics from your hunt!
From: Timbrhuntr
05-Apr-16
That is pretty cool and took a lot of guts to let the youngsters loose on your expensive decoy LOL !
From: Ridge Wraith
10-Apr-16
Thanks Timbrhuntr. Actually the project wasn't all that expensive. $49 for the decoy, $6 for the paint, and free child labor!
I have been known to do some crazy painting projects around the house though :)
Maybe some day I'll learn to just leave well enough alone, but what's the fun in that?
From: Ridge Wraith
10-Apr-16
I had neighbors standing in the drive way giving me the "WTH?" like the scene in Field of Dreams when Ray plows under his corn to build a baseball field.
From: Ridge Wraith
10-Apr-16
Turned out OK I guess.
From: Ridge Wraith
10-Apr-16
I had the chance to give the new deke a try this morning. Without a tag, I could only shoot em with the Nikon. Brought this big Tom in first thing off the roost.
From: Ridge Wraith
10-Apr-16
He never made it into attack mode. This raccoon and he converged on the jake decoy at the same time making things a little too tense for the gobbler to continue his approach. He turned away at 12 yards.
