Clothes are their canvas

Tony Martinez wants the shirt off your back. He wants your sneakers, your pants, and your ideas. If you tell him what you want, his company will deliver. He even makes you a promise: "Not one other person in the world is gonna have the exact same shirt."

In just three months, Martinez and his four artists have built a cult following among members of the young Latino community in Jamaica Plain and around the city. At 24, the Jamaica Plain native (he calls himself "Boston-Rican") is the founding president of Created By Us Airbrushing (CBU), a new company that specializes in customized airbrushed designs on all types of surfaces and clothing. Airbrushing is a staple of the hugely popular Reggaeton music culture among Boston's Latino youth.

"Our clients are very into the hip-hop and Reggaeton scene. They're into what's new and original," Martinez said, adding that CBU creates apparel for Alofoque, a Boston-based Reggaeton group. The genre mixes Latin soul and rhythm with hip-hop style percussion. Martinez, who is a student at UMass-Boston, also moonlights as a musician.

CBU's artists, ranging from 14 to 25, aren't imitating the culture: They live it every day. The youngest is 14-year-old Armani Acevedo; Efren Sosa is 21; Juan Hernandez is 22; and Eliu Hernandez is 25.

Sosa -- known to friends as "Cito" -- says he was the first of the group to start airbrushing while in high school. When he was 7, his father challenged him to a bird-drawing contest. Guess who won?

"I always knew how to draw," says Sosa, never short on confidence. Sosa showed off his latest pieces to friends on a recent busy day during which he airbrushed clothing for customers from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. "I used to draw anything and everything. In high school, my mom kept asking what I wanted for my birthday, and I finally said an airbrushing machine."

Run out of Martinez's home, the start-up business got a boost when Osiris Dominguez, owner of Osiris Unlimited on Central Street in Lowell, gave CBU its first chance to work out of a clothing store.

On giving them their first shot, Dominguez said: "I'm glad that it was me, because they're very talented. Seventy percent of the time, customers would pay first, and they would give the artists a tip because they weren't expecting the level of work that they got. They were artists and businessmen."

And CBU is surrounded by a band of fellow entrepreneurs, artists, and musicians whose friendship and support for one another complement their competitive spirit to succeed. Rafael "Rey-D" Reyes, 21, of Alofoque, says wearing CBU-designed apparel during shows and promotions serves a dual purpose: They get to support their friends and wear customized logos that represent Boston, an important factor in setting themselves apart in the New York-dominated Reggaeton music scene.

"We figure we could almost use them as our clothing line, so that we can just represent our crew and [area code] 617," Reyes said. "Clothing is really important if you can represent where you're coming from. These dudes are hot; they do some nice stuff. We're really trying to put our culture out there."

CBU's basement studio is part laundry room, part boardroom -- with plush lounge chairs, sketches of cartoon characters, pictures of Al Pacino in "Scarface," and spattered paint on a rug. From the looks of things, business is good. Or is it?

"Right now, it's down season," Martinez says. "The artwork that we do goes on shirts, and no one really wears T-shirts in the winter."

But Martinez, determined not to let the cold temperatures freeze out his company's cash flow, is running an online promotion just in time for the holidays called "Winter's Frozen Fashion." If there's a holiday rush, Eliu Hernandez is up to the task. "Airbrushing is like a drug to me," he says, "and I don't know how to stop."