How To Paint Your Own Shoes

I bought a pair of shoes last summer that I consider to be trusted allies. They’re my favorites, and oing with the theme of “Favorites” this week, I decided to try and replace them with the same, or a similar pair of shoes. Apparently, in one year, a lot has changed in the illustrious world of Men’s shoe fashion. Not that I have ever been very fashionable. Here are my main criteria when shopping for a shoe:

• Doesn’t weigh 12 million pounds
• Makes good use of color
• Very Comfortable
• Doesn’t encourage people to make incorrect assumptions about my sexuality.
• Durable enough to hold up to the many asses I kick. (I have a similar requirement about pens I use to be able to hold up to all the names I take, but I digress…)
• Not Lame.

I don’t think this is an unreasonable set of demands for something I have to wear for the better part of my waking life for a while. In fact, I think that’s pretty easy going. Regardless, a trip to the mall had me reeling in disgust.

For the record, I’m not a professional motocross rider. I’ve never made any claim to be one. However, it seems that pretending you ride freestyle motocross is the newest hippest fad along with pretending you’re an ultimate fighter. If you’re looking for 20 of the same shoes, slightly tweaked to prevent idiots from seeing they’re all essentially the same, consult your local mall. Pictured Top Right, is pretty much what I was confronted with at every single store: Black and white with black and some squiggly black or white highlighted with black. Or white.

What’s a guy to do? Call bullshit on the myth that “Well, I can’t do any better”. I bought a pair of White Vans for 30 bucks, broke out my airbrush (A Badger 155 Airbrush), and held up the finger to conformity. I did some planning in photoshop (Pictured Right) but once the paint started flowing, creativity took over a little bit. Below are some pictures I took while painting my new kicks. If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to leave them in the comments. Click to see the larger version.

The shoes turned out VERY vivid and bright. Not really how I envisioned them looking, but I made them, they’re EXACTLY what I want, and they cost me 1/3 of what “The Man’s” shoes would have cost, and if I want, I can still go pro with my freestyle motocross riding.