“How To” Project- Making Hand Painted Flames

pic-11-4

-“How-To” Project-

Making Hand Painted Flames

Author:         tjtommi
Vehicles Needed:     Any

Special Tools:     Brushes detailed in step #1, Sharpie Pen, Pencil

Materials:     Paint of choice, Fine Grit Sandpapers, Clear Coat

Rating:       Novice
#1 Three different brushes were used:

  1. Loew-Cornell 18/0 liner for the flame fill-ins.
  2. Loew-Cornell 18/0 script liner for the outlines.
  3. Loew-Cornell 6/0 also used for filling the flames.

The brand is not as important as the size of the brush, although a quality brush does achieve better results.

pic-11-1

#2 Draw a sketch of the bus and make copies to try different ideas on. Making these the exact size of the casting can make the transfer easier when a final design is reached.

pic-11-2

#3 Place the casting next to the drawing and with 18/0 script liner paint the heart of the flames. This sample used a mix of HOK yellow basecoat tinted with kandy apple red intensifier and reduced with slow reducer. The 18/0 script liner was used because it holds a fair amount of paint and can pull a fairly long even line.

pic-11-3

#4 The outline for the rest of the flames was continued and then filled in with 6/0 and 18/0 liner brushes (not as long as a script liner) and give a little better color control with the shorter bristles.

pic-11-4

#5 After the flames are built up wet-sand them carefully with 1500-2000 grit sandpaper.

If the sandpaper is folded and a firm edge is created you can also shape and get rid of any roughness on the edges of the flame “licks”.

At this point, put a thin coat of clear coat of your choice to protect the work you have done.

The next step, was a coat of clear custom mixed kandy apple red, tangerine and root beer intensifiers to come up with the fade color. The way kandy and/or transparent colors work is the more coats you apply the darker the color gets. In this case more was applied to the edges for better definition and shape..

pic-11-5

#6 In this case the fade was not as great as was intended so 2000 grit sandpaper was used to lightly sand the uneven odd looking areas and more fade color was reapplied to get a smoother transition.

pic-11-6

Hot World Customs thanks Scott aka tjtommi for the contribution, please check out his other How-to’s.

Leave a Reply