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Bob Johnson originally brought his Yamaha Dragstar up for me to paint in 2004. The brief was to give it some stylised metallic flames all the way down the bike to go with the flame stitchwork on his custom seat.

The first stage was to get all of the panels into primer, after which they were all based in straight black.

Then, they were all masked up with the flame design and the gun metal and platinum metallic paint was airbrushed over to create the flames.

Skulls were painted onto the sides of the petrol tank to help break the flames up before everything was clearcoated and polished by Steve Edwards. The bike was then put back together by Grizzley's workshop in Halifax before Bob picked it up again.

In 2007, Bob got in touch again. Unfortunately he'd had a minor accident with the bike and the right hand side of the tank was damaged. I was also give the job of painting a new shortened rear fender to match.

Flameworks repaired the dint in the tank and it was given back to me to repair the artwork and add some new features. This time I incorporated some real flame effects along with the metallic flames. Bob also suggested some lettering to go with it. I added another skull and some real flames to the new rear fender to match.

I took the opportunity to redo the skulls on the tank whilst I did the rest of the work as I decided I wasn't happy with my original efforts. I incorporated a lot more subtle shading and spent time getting the shape of the skull and teeth correct.

The completed artwork was then sent back to Flameworks for clearcoating before being sent back to Bob for refitting to the bike.

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