No Progress

 A welcome cool down is on the way but man its been hot. On Sunday my wife and I spent the day on the bike. It was a scorcher. We got home at 6pm and it was still 94 degrees. We were looking forward to the relief of our central air conditioning but when we walked into the house we were greeted by temps in the 80's and two pissed off cats. A quick check of things made me believe the ac compressor finally took a crap. Its been making noise for a few years now and was 20 years old before we bought this house a few decades ago. Monday we were laughed at by store managers when we inquired about window air conditioner availability. Apparently everyone was sold out. My wife made a post on facebook about our situation and her sister came through with a new in the box unit she was hoarding and friend Chris came through with a deal on a 12,000 btu unit she wasn't using. Thanks ladies! Its not cool being hot and Scotty Too Hotty was over heating.
 While my wife was chasing down ac units, I was messin around in the paint booth trying to get my true fire flames to look true. I don't think I made much progress but I don't think I'm going backwards. I need to come up with a style that fits me and I suppose that will come with time. I watched one tutorial video where the dude claimed he had about 130 hours practice before he was happy with his work. Screw that. If I don't see progress in the next few attempts then I may have an airbrush setup for sale. Here are attempts 3 and 4. I think my next try will be of some long thin flames or at least something that is wider at the point of origin than at the tip. At the very least I want to add some dimension to these flames where the layers interact with each other, rather than just lay on top of each other.

 The more I paint these things the more I realize that the ones that should look like true fire are not necessarily the ones I like. Maybe thats just because I'm not good at them yet or maybe because I've always liked old school  hot rod flames. I have a feeling my "style" may end up somewhere between real and fantasy with more freehand and less stencil. We'll see.
 Ultimately these flames will end up on the sportster tank. You may remember when I told you about taping off some flames to hide a blemish in my paint job. The tape reacted with the clear coat and left it looking like shit.

 You can see some irregularities in the paint by the reflection of the light.

 I wet sanded and then buffed the paint and the marks went away. I suppose I could just bolt the tank on and ride the bike till I'm ready to paint it but I may hold off on that for a while. I'll keep you posted.

Later.