Long gone are the days of a store shelf full of simple plain white or white shoes with an accent color like navy. Go into any sneaker store and it seems like a competition between brands to release the most outlandish looking design or newest rendition on a vintage silhouette. All other brands aside, Nike is the leader in this game of design as much as they are in footwear overall. For example take this Nike Air Max 90 that originally came out 24 years ago in simple leather, mesh, rubber, and foam. Now the base used here are lacking leather all together with a fused plastic upper and clear rubber midsoles. Intense and beautiful. With the ever increasing changes customizers have to keep on their toes for techniques and processes. For some it becomes less fulfilling work as customer inquiries are typical things influenced by a brand or lacking creativity. Yet sometimes just using their own vision as a creative brings customizers back to the main reason they ever started.
This already detailed Nike Air Max 90 ICE seems like any type of customization would clash, right? Well Roberto aka SmoothTip found the right balance of paint and creativity to overcome that challenge. The simple addition of lime green over the top half of the shoe with a jagged edge transition between it and the original pattern look just right. That whole using your own vision as a creative is exemplified in this pair.
From Roberto “Something fresh I just knocked out. I really enjoy the work that’s not bounded to a design that Nike has already done. It stops being a job at that point.”
Here at PaintOrThread that is what we like to showcase. Yes offering custom orders as a job is something to be proud of but so is using your own creativity to make something new. PROPS to those that do BOTH. More work from SmoothTip can be found on his site: SmoothTip.com and by following him on Instagram: @SmoothCustoms82
