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When I was still operating my hydro business we were doing a lot of custom shoe work. It's a huge industry, but one challenge is the shoe decorators that are most recognized for their custom shoe work (via airbrush, paint) and are doing the professional athlete ones are dabbling in hydrodipping and doing it in a bucket and they look like crap, but because they are the well known decorators people are buying them up left and right. I was fortunate to be partnered with a good friend and one of those 'well known' shoe customizers and he would have me do anything on his projects that required hydrodipping because he knew I was a professional and they would come out looking factory; then he would work his airbrush magic for the rest of the shoe. We had a great partnership and landed shoes in the hands of the likes of that guy with the last name Timberlake, another guy that is known by "Snoop" and numerous NBA and MLB players, etc. There is definitely a market for the custom shoes, but it is one niche for hydrographics that is being totally destroyed by hacks and the youtube "experts". Spent so much time in the custom shoe market showing customers online/youtube crap versus what my professionally processed results were. I have also seen where Nike and Adidas have now begun dabbling in the hydrodip process for some of their high-end customer/custom shoe events...

The prep work and attention to detail required for the shoe market is very high so if you are doing custom shoes don't sell yourself short and price them accordingly. There's my two sense as a now former fellow professional hydrographics shop. I definitely miss doing shoes though!