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Andy Rushton spent most of 2005 travelling all over the country once the paintwork had been completed on his huge Boom trike.

I trawled the web looking for pictures of preying mantises and used what I found to sketch out how it would fit onto the panels and covers. I'm particularly happy with how the mandibles look on the front mudguard as that really gives it that mantis feel.

All the prep and priming was dealt with before it got to me, at which point I used various House of Kolor paints to build up the gorgeous pearl green that forms the skin of the Mantis. Because it's such a huge machine I went for a large design that would work best when viewed from a distance rather than fine detail that you'd need to get close to the trike to really appreciate.

I would like to heartily acknowledge Andy Stroud at Hairy Designs who provided some very helpful tips on which House of Kolor paints to use to achieve the pearl green effect that I wanted. There's a longer story to that but I won't elaborate here!!

The texture of the Mantis was built up with freehand air-brushing & basic masking.

The lacquering & polishing was applied by the same bodyshop who did the preparation work and it's a great job. The depth really shows off the deep pearl and the overall effect is great.

Andy had plastic covers printed up to cover the head-lights with a continuation of the head design.

Since the completed project hit the road it has won 9 prizes in the UK, including best paint at the big Celtic Warriors bash and best trike at both the Pro Custom show in Doncaster and the 2005 Bulldog Bash.

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