I stayed pretty simple and avoided the mesh work on my first attempt. I'm pretty pleased with it and it looks great in the water. Silver pearl base coat with gold and a custom greenish/brown back. Anything you'd change?

Very nice work TXmed. Great colors. Good to see you posting again.

Here's a tip for two different gill effects. Take a piece of transparency and trace the gill edge on the transparency with a sharpie. Now cut the tracing out and you'll have an inside and outside edge stencil of the gill plate. Turn your air pressure way down and thin your paint to about 4 to 6 (paint to thinner). Using the outside edge stencil you can get a very nice gill edge by holding it just a little away from the gill texture and against the lure body. Spraying the edge of the stencil very lightly. Makes a pretty fine clean line along the textured edge. Using the inside edge and aligning it over the edge of the gill texture spray the edge of the stencil lightly...for a bleeding gill look. In both cases spray the stencil not the lure. The overspray will create the gill detail. Takes a little practice but it works.

Greg Vinall would agree.