Gandolf,
The little blockheads are made on size 8 kink shank hooks, bluegill size for me. The balsa for them came from a 1/4 X 1/4 inch square strip.
Tyronefly,
Haven't fish any of this batch yet. Even down here in Arizona topwater time doesn't start until April at best, usually May.
FlyfishDog,
I used a couple of different methods to make this batch. Some of them I carved with a dremel, just glued the block of balsa onto the hook and hten shaped it with a sanding drum. Some of them I preformed the basic shape on a lathe, then finished the bodies on the hook. The little blockheads I just cut to shape in a mitre box (I did drill them crosswise and inserted a toothpick to make the raised eyes).
Greybeard,
These were all painted with acrylic 'hobby' paints like you can get at WalMart or any craft store. Some I airbrushed, the ones with the scale pattern backs, the rest I did by hand.
Dudley,
The pattern on the smallmouth was done with a stippling/stencil brush. These have a round crosssection and a flat face. You use these by pressing them into the work, not brushing across it. It takes a little bit of practice to get this to work right. What I did was dip the end of the brush into the paint then pressed it into a paper towel to dry it a bit, then gently stippled the paint onto the bait. For the smallmouth, I used a buff base coat (white mixed with a bit of yellow) then stipled on brown and then olive over it.
I put a coat of clear acrylic over all once the coloring was done, added a finish coat of 'sparkle glaze' (clear acrylic with a bit of gliter already in it), and finished the whole thing with a top coat of epoxy.
Took a bit longer than just airbrushing would, but I'm happy with the results.
The first one here was done by hand, the second with the airbrush.
Buddy