I grew tired of looking at this display fender just setting around on my bench so I threw it on the fender jig and started painting. Once I was done I wish I had waited to gather some reference photos so as to help achieve a more realistic looking flame. It gets a bit perplexing when trying to do realistic flames for the first time. The mind keeps wanting to do traditional hot rod style flames!! Oh well, hindsight is 20/20. The paints used for the base black and the graphics are all Auto Air waterbased paints.

They ended up looking a bit more like a graffitti type flame but hey, I had fun doing them.  Here is what I got.....

Based with black base I loaded up the airbrush with a mixture of base white and transparent extender. I simply started laying out flames with no rhyme nor direction.

Started cutting the flames out a bit more with Flame Orange and then Flame Red.

Once I had finished with the Flame Red I mixed up some Transparent Rootbeer Brown and transparent Dark Violet with a drop of transparent black. I used this to cut out the flames from the fender, eliminating overspray. I then added white highlights.

Here I use an over reduced finish clear. I do this as a sealer for the waterbase paints and also give a more stable surface for the application of some vinyl lettering.

As far as I am concerned, my hand lettering leaves much to be desired so I simply cut what I wanted out of vinyl. Once the clear has dried to the touch (about an hour) I applied the lettering.

After 2 more coats of clear, I will color sand to remove and edges in the clear from the lettering and give it another coat or two then finish sand and buff.

This fender will spend it's life hanging on the wall in my garage as a momento from Metal Meet 2004 where I fabricated it.