I love kendamas that have a pastel look! Light purples, pinks and blues etc... I also like any tama that fades to a natty from the painted top. I'm not a big fan of a black and white tama (especially if black is around the bevel). I'm also not a big fan of words painted all over the tama like "Dama" or some cheesy words or sayings. (I do like the new KROM pro mods different style because it's a pro mod and presented nicely) I would like to know what you guys like/dislike about colors and "custom paints"?? My preferences have changed over the years and I'd like to see what other people like!
I dig pastel colors too, but I've slowly gravitated towards natural tamas. My favorite being a beeswaxed keyaki on a birch GT16. I agree with you regarding words painted on tamas, definitely not my preferred style either. As for paints.. I liked girrs custom paint fades for kenco back in the day.. Their very last release of white stripe paint is probably the best paint of all time in my book though. I recently got a custom tama from Sourmash (Steve's a great dude), who hooked me up with a sick hammerhead and wavelike marksmanship flair around the bevel. The pro clear he uses over his custom designs is so prime time too. I'm picky about paints. Don''t really like mattes, silks, or cushion. Gotta have a smooth adjustability feel and simplistic design.
Blue color ways are definitely my favorite. The Blueberry Frost and Day Dreamer Vibes from Sol Kendamas and Colin Sander's and TJ Kolesnik's KUSA promod tamas are a couple of my favorites in that regard. I do enjoy playing silk/rubber paint tamas, especially Sol's Vibe series paint. Also the sticky paint (LOL Clear, Sol Pioneer paint, TJ's promod super sticky), after jamming them for a good while they get a good slick to tack ratio. I'm not a big fan of part painted, part natty tamas but the TJ promod tama and Nihon Slaydawg tama really make it work.
For me it doesnt really matter because Sourmash just teaches me how to paint and I use his paint. My favourite style paint way is this This tama looks awesome and i cant wait for the paint i ordered it paint it! Gonna be SUPER STICKY!
Ooh, I saw him working on this one, it was really rad! Very oldschool-sailor-tattoo sorta feel. If its painted, I'm always a fan of red/green/blue (individually, not all at once!), but really, I have a lot of different colours in my collection. Its probably easier to list the colour I don't like: black, or other very dark shades of whatever. Makes it much tougher to spot the hole! Anything with tracking is a bonus as well, stripes or splits, or whatever.
I like trip splits, fades, and Tamas that have the thin line through the middle. The paint I prefer is just a classic silk or sometimes pro clear. I really hate solid color kendamas because of the tracking tho. Buuut I have mixed feelings with gloss paint. I hate how it's extra hard with balance tricks, but I love the challenge to it and because of playing with gloss, it improved my lighthouse skill.
I wish I played solids more often, they make you better. For looks there's only one thing I can't stand, and that's vertical splits
Trip stripes are prob my favorite painted design. The Wyatt mod is my dream design probably just because it looks so CLEAN. The white and green just really work well. I also love anything girr as far as paints go, and I like 90% of paints when they're a cleat coat. Don't ask me why all paints improve(silk, Cush, super stick,etc) but they seem 10x more playable.
I like cushion fades a lot. They seem to be easy to track and I also like natural kendamas with double stripes, BLK makes a good one. Half split natty is good too...I wish I could get like a half split natty with a tracking ring, kinda like those R and D homegrowns Sweets did a while back.
Not a big fan of glossy darker solid colors. I do like matte solid colors - still able to track. I like simple designs like half-splits, 70/30 splits, trip-splits, single stripes, natties etc. If the tama is split I prefer the darker color to be placed on the string hole side; I had one that was black around the bevel and white around the string hole and the tracking sucked big time. Also, love colors fading into each other. I'd say a combo of baby blue and white might be my favorite.