Pinstriping Animal Style: The One Arm Bandit

By Craig Pike

Craig Pike

I met pinstriper and all around cool cat Charlie Decker online, probably at Myspace, before I met him in person at the Grand National Roadster Show. I hit him up for some samples of his pinstriping and a quick bio so you’d know his style a little more. For you west-side cruisers, you better make an appointment! Charlie lives in Connecticut, so if you see him, grab him and his striping kit to lay down some crazy flowing lines.

I’ve included some of my favorite pinstriping from the “One Arm Bandit” as he’s known. These animal creations and artistic forms he’s blended with sweeping stripes blow me away. I’m not sure I could draw that in a hundred tries and he throws it down freehand in paint right from his mind to the brush. I don’t know if we’ll see this kind of work on hot rods, but if that’s what you want…

Continue reading after the jump!

Here’s more about Charlie:

I started striping about 14 years ago around the age of 16. I was influenced by the 50′s style hot rod era and the traditionally styled hot rods I first pinstriped after a few years of practice. A lot of people say my striping has an old style feel with a bit of a twist.

In 1999 I started striping and lettering as a part time job and after about 5 or 6 years I was able to do pinstriping full time and I’ve now been doing so now for almost 4 years.

I’ve been playing around with other types of designs with my striping other than just regular old designs. I’ve been striping animal designs like you see here. A guy asked me to stripe a design of a rabbit about 2 years ago and that sparked my imagination. The picture of the tiger within my portfolio here was one of the first animal designs I did. That lead to some interest from other people, so I’ve been dabbling with other designs like that as well.

I enjoy doing stuff like the animals, because its different. I’ve striped everything, all types of things from antique cars to zippo lighters and everything in between. My favorite jobs are the ones that allow me to really put my all into them. This is when the budget for the work doesn’t matter and I can take as long as I’d like. I think it’s always fun to sit down in front of a huge open canvas, like a big decklid thats been de-emblemized and just go nuts on it. 90% of the time my customers leave it all up to me, so I’d have to say I really enjoy what I do.

If you’ve got a car you need striped or an inner animal you need painted on a panel, Charlie can come to you or you can send him stuff via mail to work his magic on.

e mail - onearmbanditstripes @ hotmail.com (remove the spaces) or call: 973-670-5238 or
Also, friend him at: myspace.com/onearmbanditpinstriping

Thanks for the info and great pinstiping pics Charlie. See all of his work in the pinstriping picture gallery at MyRideisMe.com