With the J Balvin Air Jordan 3 release coming very soon and the images of the secondary colorway circling the internet this week; it was only right to put our own spin on it. After all J Balvin has released 2 other Jordan sneakers and it looks like he is going in order… Could an Air Jordan 4 be next or will he switch it up?
In today’s episode of Customs and Restorations with Vick, he takes on a Metallic Orange Jordan 4 that he picked up on eBay for a steal! When we started talking about the project we knew we had to pick the perfect base shoe. Vick is a huge Jordan 4s fan, but it was also important to follow the order that J Balvin has set up!
The J Balvin’s Jordan 3s were inspired by the sunset in Medellin, Colombia and feature a beautiful gradient pattern on the midsole. Vick Almighty decided to use that vibe to match the general release. Since we live in Arizona and often have beautiful sunsets, Vick decided to pay homage to his hometown by adding a little more Arizona to the custom.
Now let’s talk about the customization process; as always you can’t start reconstruction without a little bit of deconstruction. We needed to take apart the backtabs that came on the sneaker to make room for the custom J Balvin backtabs. Once the backtabs were off we needed to remove the factory finish to prep for the remainder of the customization.
After all that prep it was time to get them to the right color! The J Balvin 3s have more of an aged vibe, so using coffee we needed to match it. Dying white sneakers with coffee is a perfect start to your customization career. After-all some sneakers look 100X better aged! After you dip them, don’t forget to give them a wash, so you don’t walk around smelling like a coffee shop! ???? Even though the coffee didn’t make the most perfect tone it was still what was needed to make this custom work!
After we got the correct color on the sneaker it was time to get to the point! Now it is time to put those lovely J Balvin touches on the kicks. Starting with those custom Jordan 4 backtabs from Vick’s friend (All Shoes Matter on IG).
Vick got the easy stuff out of the way before heading into the fun yet tedious part of the custom… The midsole gradient paint job! This is not a simple task, but man does it look good in the end! But wait the gradient isn’t the most time consuming part of this! You know what is? The details; Vick spent hours detailing the edges with a small detail brush, but hey it was worth it!
Overall, I think Vick made J Balvin proud! Let us know in the comments what the best J Balvin to ever release is? We are thinking the 3s are the best of the batch!
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00:00 Introduction
00:47 How To Remove Backtabs on Jordan 4s
01:35 How to Prep for a Paint Job
02:48 How to Coffee Dye Sneakers
03:44 How to Wash Shoes in the Washing Machine
04:50 How to Paint Leather Uppers On AJ4’s
05:43 How to Replace Jordan 4 Backtabs
10:02 How to Paint a Gradient Midsole
12:29 How to Airbrush Jordan 4s
13:46 Detail Work
14:18 The Finished Product
Jay Babin just dropped his Jordan 3. I Love the metagen sunset inspiration So Today we're going to beat him to the Punch and create the J Balvin Jordan 4. Gradient colors and custom J Balvin Jordan 4 back Tabs are on point but We're getting ahead of ourselves let me Show you how it's done [Music] First things first we're gonna take out The laces and insoles so we can start Taking apart these shoes [Music] The base shoe that we're going to be Using for these J Balvin 4 Customs are The orange metallic Jordan 4s from 2019 It's a perfect base shoe and I love the Orange accents it's gonna be perfect for The twist that I'm gonna give the sunset On these sneakers instead of using Colors from the Medellin Sunset we're Going to go with colors from the Phoenix Sunset we'll get to that later on in This video first we gotta take off the Back tabs off these shoes we got our Exacto knife I went ahead and taped it Up just so we have the tip of the exacto Knife that way when I go in and remove The back tab the other part of the exact Knife doesn't accidentally slice the Leather Foreign [Music] Foreign
[Music] [Music] Got the back tabs off no issue with that We'll save these for a future project Next we're going to do some prep work Using some S7 and cotton balls we're Going to wipe down the uppers and the Midsoles before all that using some 400 Grit sandpaper we're going to sand down The entire midsole to get it ready for a Paint job [Music] Let's prep the uppers the only areas to Stay away from is the orange Chrome Because the Astron will wipe that away [Music] Is complete now we're back to the back Tab area when I remove the back tabs all The old stitching came off from the White leather we got to go in and Replace that before we could add our new Back tabs so for this we're going to be Using some white thread and a needle It's going to be a very time consuming Step to do this right we don't want it To look janky the technique to adding The stimulated stitching onto the Leather seems complicated but it's Actually really easy and very time Consuming to do this right it's going to Take me about three hours first I'm Gonna get the thread to the very first Hole where the stitching ends after that I'm gonna create a little knot every
Other Stitch I unthread the needle stick The needle back in thread the needle Pull it back out and then create a Stitch it's a very repetitive process But it's the way to get the cleanest Stitch lines possible Prepper is complete now I sent a copy of These shoes I want to get a nice Consistent cream tone throughout the Entire upper the best way to do that is By using coffee we got to take a water Right here we gotta heat it up pour some Coffee in then mix it up real well after That we'll put the shoes inside let's do That now [Music] Oh All right after about two hours we got The shoes out of the coffee these look Great we got a nice consistent cream Throughout the entire shoe now we got to Put them in the washing machine with our Laundry bag and detergent to fully flush Out the coffee and smell [Music] Foreign [Music] Guys so we got the shoe out of the Washing machine it's all dry looking Good we washed away all the coffee and The coffee smell as you can see we got a Nice consistent cream tone on the Midsole and the sole same thing with the Netting I love that tone sockliner looks
Great the one thing I'm not too happy About is the leather in some areas it's Nice and beige other areas such as the Side it's very white still I'm not a big Fan of it so we're going to tape off Everything but the white leather so we Can go in with some cream paint to even It all out [Music] All taped up the only thing that's Exposed is the leather like I mentioned We want to even out the tone so we got Some cream paint mixed up I only mixed Up white with a little bit of brown Let's go ahead and use the airbrush Foreign [Music] [Music] Got the tape off I love how the uppers Turned out we got a nice consistent Cream throughout the entire shoe now We're on to the back tabs shout out to All shoes matter on Instagram he did a Beautiful job creating these These Are Made fully from scratch he did a lot of Work to create these he had to design Them 3D print cast a mold to get them to This point as you can see on one of the Back tabs we got the J Balvin smiley Face logo and on the opposite we got the Nike Air if you need any custom back Tabs make sure to check out all shoes Matter on Instagram now let's keep it Moving on the back as is the surface is
Pretty smooth we've got to use a Dremel To roughen it up that way we go in and Glue it onto the shoes it adheres Properly Foreign [Music] Prep is complete on the back side now We're on to the front side we got to get Ready for the paint job first we're Going to be using some 400 grit Sandpaper we're going to go over the Entire thing that'll be part of the prep Work [Music] All done with the setting on the front Side and back side now we're going to go Outside and spray some Bulldog adhesion Promoter this is going to help the paint Stick a lot better on the front side and The glue on the back side let's go Outside this stuff stinks [Music] [Music] All right Onto the stitching we're not going to Directly install this back tab onto the Shoe we got to add some simulated Stitching so we got to use some white Thread and a needle pretty simple stuff [Music] Stitching is complete now we gotta apply Some glue onto the back side of the back Tabs and onto the shoes specifically on The rough areas such as a gray and the
White [Music] [Music] All right it's been about an hour since We let the glue cure now we're going to Attach it onto the shoes for the Nike We're going to put it on the left shoe And the J Balvin tab we're going to put It on the right shoe let's heat it up And stick it together [Applause] [Music] All right [Music] [Music] [Music] Back Tabs are attached they look really Good everything lined up nicely now we Still have to go in and apply some glue Into the leather right here first we're Going to tape it so we can seal Everything up and wrap this part up Foreign [Music] [Music] These are looking really sick as is They're kind of like off-white Jordan 4s We still have to go in and apply the Paint job the reason why I didn't do the Paint job before I installed them onto The shoes is because I didn't want to Risk getting any glue on the paint job It's going to be a gradient so it would Be really hard to touch up in case I got
Any glue in those areas I didn't want to Risk it so we'll do that later first We're going to tape off the midsole then We'll come back to the back tabs later Oh Taped out is complete onto the gradient Paint job first we're gonna lay down a White base coat so all these colors can Pop after that we're going to start off With the yellow move on to the light Orange then orange red light purple then Dark purple for this part just like the Day valve and threes we're going to Start off with the yellow back here work Our way to the orange then red and Finish it off with the purple [Music] All right Typically when it comes to a sunset Gradient I always start with the Lightest color which is yellow and work My way up to purple one darker color at A time once the first and base color is Down then you can start the gradient Effect with the next color being light Orange and then so on the key is to not Take on the paint but lightly Mist it Onto the surface in the direction you Want the gradient to happen Don't Spray The opposite direction at any time Because that will completely ruin the Effect lastly dropping the PSI on your Compressor can also help create a Smoother gradient effect by having less
Pain come out of the airbrush [Music] Foreign Foreign Guys that's how it's done we got a nice Beautiful consistent gradient we start Off with the yellow worked our way to a Light orange orange red orange red Violet then darker purple same thing on The opposite side it looks beautiful Nice and vibrant now we just got to go Outside and protect it with a gloss Finisher [Music] Oh [Music] [Music] Gradient's complete now we're on to the Back tabs first we got to do some taping So we can lay down the paint job [Music] All taped up let's lay down our white Base coat then we can move on to the Gradient same exact thing as the midsole We'll start with the yellow work our way To the orange red then purple from the Bottom to the top [Music] Thank you I'm going to use the same technique I Did for the gradient paint job for these Metals on these back tabs the only Change is the direction of the gradient Which will be from down to up
With a smaller space to work with for The gradient effect I gotta make sure I'm not taking on the paint and that I'm Constantly spraying in the top direction To avoid getting any paint on the areas Like the yellow Having the PSI on medium level on my Compressor is also key to getting a nice Smooth braiding effect [Music] All done with the back tab the gradient Matches the Mentos perfectly now we Still have one more step to do and it's Gonna be the most time consuming out of This whole project we got to go in with Some yellow paint and a small detail Brush and hit all of the leather edges We don't want to get any paint on the Leather so we got to be very careful we Gotta hit every single part of this shoe Foreign [Music] [Music] All done with the yellow trimming this Part came out perfect they look Identical to the J Balvin Jordan 3s for This part it took two different things a Steady hand and tons of energy shout out To ghost [Music] Picks him up [Music] All right everybody that's going to Bring us to an end on these custom J
Balvin Jordan Force let us know in the Comments section which version you like Better the Jordan 3 that's coming out or It's custom Jordan 4's I'll leave it up To you guys in today's video I showed You guys how to do four major things the First one being how to age your sneaker And get a consistent cream tone second I Showed you guys how to do a sunset Gradient for my version I went with more Vibrant colors to represent the Arizona Sunset because that's the sunset that I Know best the third thing I showed you Guys how to do is replace the back tabs All these Jordan 4s these back Tabs are Key to this project without them we Wouldn't have some J Balvin Jordan 4s And lastly I painted all the edges of The leather with some yellow paint that Part by far took the longest overall These Customs came out beautiful and I'm Looking forward to see what J Balvin Does in the future with the Jordan 4. Hope you guys enjoyed this video I'll Catch you guys next Monday see y'all Foreign [Music]
