Ryan Evans is the lead custom painter at Count’s Kustoms, the Las Vegas shop known for its over-the-top custom builds on television.
For 21 years and “counting,” he has served as the main talent behind every single legendary paint job featured on the show---from concept to completion. A recognized and celebrated custom painter, Evans supports the industry and artist development via hands-on training at workshops around the world, and he donates his time and talent to charities with custom painted works of art.
Prior to joining Danny Koker’s Count’s Kustoms and Discovery’s most popular automotive show, Evans was painting in his own shop in Las Vegas and working on a contract basis for Count’s Kustoms.
Koker and the crew from Count’s Kustoms officially unveiled yet another custom build at the SEMA Show. This year it was a 1970 Chevelle Convertible named “Sapphire” in the Hertz Kompressoren space.
Completely rebuilt from top to bottom, the custom paint job speaks to the ’70 Chevelle’s body lines. Evans used 10 shades of blue to pay homage to the vehicle owner’s beach lifestyle, and to the SS’s factory-inspired stripes.
Look closely and you’re immersed in the details, although ever-so-subtlety, which is something Evans is known for; he buried water drops in the stripes to mimic morning dew when oceanside, and he created a coral detail using a texturing technique.
Also in the Hertz space was a custom painted compressor, Model No. HBD5, that looks like it’s going 500 MPH with its racing-inspired scallops and leafing---also the handiwork of Evans.
Hertz Kompressoren is a long-time partner of Count’s Kustoms, supplying the shop with its air compressors and other related equipment.
Lift King
Evans visited Lift King Products at SEMA this year to talk about the company’s new motorcycle stand---an introduction he’s excited about for so many reasons.
He and Count’s Kustoms’ Horny Mike talked shop as it pertains to this new product introduction from Lift King Products and what it means to their team. The two also shared the shop’s experience with the manufacturers’ bed, hood and panel lifts, as well as paint stands---equipment critical to the shop’s long-time success in pulling cars and motorcycles apart and rebuilding them on-air for all of us to see.
ANEST IWATA
At SEMA 2022, the ANEST IWATA USA space was the "Who’s who" of the custom culture, with featured artists like Steve Gibson and A.D. Cook flexing their skills with the company’s spray gun technologies.
Evans talked about the company’s newest spray gun and what it can do in and out of the booth.
For more information, visit anestiwata.com.
FBS Tapes
The Autobody News team connected with Evans at the FBS Tapes booth. Evans was there to not only catch up with his customer painter friends panel jamming in the booth, but also to watch the industry’s best of the best go head-to-head in FBS’s annual masking tape race at the show: The Ultimate Tape Off Challenge.
Big shout out to Ed Sederburg, who flexed his taping talents during the week, and walked off with the championship title and bragging rights, until next year when FBS returns to Las Vegas for the industry’s biggest show of the year.
