![]() I started painting for my surfboard sponsor, Gary Linden Surfboards in Oceanside, then I just kept evolving, working for other companies, bigger name surfboard companies.” Creating Bell’s AMA champion helmets has been an honor for Tag. Before that I’d paint surfboards just for myself or friends. “When I was surfing professionally I started air brushing. The interest in painting was clearly a genetic one, Tag having been a drawer all his young life, and his time in the professional surf ranks allowed him to explore the process of airbrushing. When I free surfed with any of the top pros I could surf as good as them, but I just didn’t have the contest sense or smarts to calculate all the stuff that you need to win.” America WorldSSP rider PJ Jacobsen has been a long time wearer of Tagger’s helmets. “Nowadays they have pros that just do trips and videos, which would have been perfect if they had that back then for me. “I wasn’t that great of a contest surfer,” Tag says with a refreshing honesty. And he was good on a board, too, so good he turned pro as a teenager and toured the world hitting some of the biggest breaks in the globe. The son to art mad parents in the mecca of Laguna Beach, California, Tag’s first calling was unsurprisingly that of the ocean. It can take months to get a design from mind to helmet. His designs have covered the craniums of some of motocross’ biggest names-Villopoto, McGrath, Tedesco-as well as NASCAR driver Boris Said, World Supersport rider PJ Jacobsen, former Formula One driver Scott Speed and the late, great Off-Road racer, Kurt Caselli. Just tell me everything that you want and I will put it together for you when I paint it.” Former AMA Formula Xtreme Champion, Aaron Gobert’s helmets were done at Tagger. That process, says Tag, distracted from the art of painting and conscious design. We used to do mock ups for customers when we first started, but I had to pay someone to do the graphic designs on the computer and show them and go back and forth with customers. “First,” starts Tag, “I just talk to the customer and get their ideas of what they like-style, colors, how they want their name, all the stuff that they’re envisioning. ![]() MotoAmerica Supersport star, Valentin Debise, gets his helmets done at Tagger. You won’t find a computer anywhere in the Tagger Designs headquarters in Lake Elsinore-Tag’s design process goes from mind to matter in one constant flow, without any form of electronic interference. The former pro surfer, who long ago swapped the board for the brush to paint his own path in the powersports industry, likes to keep it old school. Tag Gasparian’s workshop is a throwback to the vintage days of custom paint. The painting force is strong with the Gasparians. Rennie Scaysbrook | “I never did it for the money, I just like seeing people stoked with their helmets.” Tag (right) with son, Bronson.
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