The art of people painting

In this post I will give you step by step instructions on how to paint a person, so let’s get started. The first thing you will need to paint a person is well, a person. Because getting painted in not a desirable thing, the more people you gather together the more likely you are to have an opportunity to paint one of them. That being said, go and get all the people together that you can manage. Ok, next step. You are going to need a place to paint at, this is not always easy, painting can be messy and finding an area to paint in can be difficult. “What kind of place should you look for?” Good question. I prefer a wooded area, but abandoned buildings and fields will also work well.

People painting can be very fun, but there is always a catch, the other people are going to attempt to paint you too. There are many tactics that can be used to avoid getting painted by another person, one is hiding. Smaller people can have a great advantage while avoiding getting painted because they are able to hide behind smaller objects. Another way to hide is by making it more difficult to differentiate between you and your surroundings, I’m talking about camouflage. Another way to avoid getting painted is running, a good athlete is often able to dodge and escape getting painted. On the contrary the human eye is attracted to movement; standing very still can also be a good tactic.

Now it is time to discuss your tools, and I’m talking about your paint, and the method of delivery. I prefer to use a Tippmann A-5 R/T as my tool for delivery, and I use the cheapest paint available. If you have not noticed by now, I have been talking about the sport known as paintball. Now lets dissect the paintball marker I choose to use so that you can get a better idea of the tools. Tippmann is a brand name, a highly reliable, producer of mid performance paintball markers (marker is used in place of gun, because there are many legal complications that come with the title “gun”). I chose the A-5 model from Tippmann because of its speed, reliability and paintball loading system. Most paintball markers have a single ball drop loading system like this one shown.



The Tippmann A-5 works in a completely different fashion, it uses a five ball drop system that forces the paintball into the marker, and this is known as a cyclone feed. In the picture below you can see the Tippmann paintball marker and a close-up of the cyclone feed.

The R/T edition of the Tippmann A-5 is what gives the marker its speed. The way the R/T (response trigger) system works is very clever, the pressurized air that is used to fire the paintball is routed to a small piston behind the trigger of the marker, the pneumatic piston then pushes the trigger back out. Now if you can imagine, putting a constant pressure on the trigger, you finger pulls the trigger back firing the marker, your finger is then pushed back out by the piston but because you are keeping a constant pressure on the trigger you immediately pull it back again. This creates a constant firing without having to pull the trigger each time, or as some would see it, a “full auto” setup. You can see an image of the response trigger in the picture below.

The paintball marker setup I have is able to shoot up to sixteen paintballs per second. That may seem very fast, but I consider it a mid grade marker because the top markers are able to fire up to thirty balls per second. To own a top grade marker with all the necessary accessories you will need to spend nearly two thousand dollars, or more. To own a setup comparable to the one I have been describing, you will need to spend between two hundred and six hundred dollars. With paintballs costing between $25 and $100 per case (2000 paintballs) depending on grade, you will spend a lot of money playing paintball. Paintball is like an addiction; after you play once or twice you are more than willing to drop a couple hundred on the game. Some people are content, able to buy a low grade fifty dollar marker and be completely satisfied. Not me, I feel like I need to continue to improve my setup and my skills.

The Sport of paintball is very unique, paintball is one of the only sports were your tools can be better than the competitors. You won’t see a football team with a better throwing football than their rivals. Don’t get me wrong though, paintball is more about how and when you use your paintball marker than anything. A good athlete with a crappy marker will usually outperform your average Joe with a nicer setup. Well I have really gone nuts on this post. If anyone is looking for a group to play with I would be happy to have you join mine and then I can paint you. 

Who decides this crap?

As some of you may know, I used to drive a red Dodge Ram 1500 sport with a 5.9 V8 Magnum. I used to love the winter time when I had that truck or Roy as I called him. Roy and I played in the snow like a ten year old would with his best buddies. Sometimes we got into a sticky situation, but nothing a couple shovels and sandbags couldn’t handle. I used to laugh at all the people stuck at home when we would get a little over a foot of snow. I had Goodyear Silent Armor, seven ply, class E, Kevlar lined, mega snow tires on my truck. They were about one hundred and eighty dollars each, but they looked good and they could track through anything and as you may know, truck tires have much greater tread life than a car tire would have. I painfully sold Roy this last march, in hopes to ease up on fuel costs and the repairs were getting expensive.

I had purchased a silver 2007 Mitsubishi Eclipse. Winter is coming up faster than we would like, so I decided it was time to start looking for some snow tires for my new car. I stood at the counter of a Goodyear dealer in Onalaska as the salesman looked up my tires; I actually choked on the Mountain Dew I was drinking when he told me the tires were going to be one hundred and eighty five dollars each. I cannot believe it, one hundred and eighty five dollars for a car tire, that is more than I paid for the tires I put on my truck, and that was a lot of tire. So that brings up the question, who decides this crap? Why would one measly car tire run five dollars more than the rugged, Kevlar lined, load barring, seven ply, long life, large truck tires I had? I am sure this is not an uncommon problem for people, when reason does not seem to matter in pricing and you get jacked. If anyone has an idea why this kind of stuff happens other than the obvious corporate greed I would like to know.