The most important part for a durable painted custom shoe is prepping the leather. If you skip prepping, the leather is not fully able to absorb the paint. No prep and your left with a paint job that is more susceptible to scuffs, cracking, rubbing off and looking like crap after just one wear. But how do you prep? Well there are a few varying techniques with all the same goal: removing the factory finish to expose a pourous leather. Los Angeles, California based shoe customizer Jacob Patterson put together a tutorial on how to prep an all white pair of Nike Air Force 1s.