Purple Flames - Dodge Ram

So my pal asked if I could do something with his truck so it wouldn't blend in with all of the other black 2500 4x4 Rams in San Antonio.  Here's my third attempt at painting Tru-Fire style flames, with a little twist.

He mentioned that he wanted some 'ghosted' purple flames on his black Dodge Ram. When we initially talked about it, he explained that he didn't want an outrageous flame-job that would be a beacon in the parking lot, but rather something that would be visible up close, and give up only a hint of something from more than 20 feet away - that 'something' being 'purple.'

The more we talked, the more I found out that he didn't want 'hot-rod' flames... he wanted Tru-Fire. I had assumed with the word 'ghosted' that we were talking hot-rod flames. Different story indeed. Ghosted hot-rod flames seemed easier to me going into this project, but now I'm not so sure. 'Subdued' purple Tru-Fire wasn't as tough as I thought it was going to be - I'd thrown down all of the different colors in the other jobs and wasn't quite sure how I was going to pull it off. Then I remembered how much effect that shooting the candies over the basecoats had on the colors, and decided to see where the colors wound up afterwards. Once I got the flames laid down and looking how I wanted, I shot the Purple candy and there ya go.

I used HOK colors and started out with Marine Blue. Then knocked 'em back a little with some Cobalt Blue Candy. Then a set of licks with So Blue, and finally finished up with the Passion Purple Pearl (after letting the 'pearl' part - which is really some clear silver metallic - settle in the bottle).

We ran out of time during the weekend before he had to drive back to San Antonio, so he kinda got stuck with the color-sanding and final buffing/polishing. But so far he's made comments that he's pleased - so it's all good.
 

The following is the series of things I'm doing in doing 'Tru-Fire' flames with an airbrush.  The paints I'm using to do this are from House of Kolor, and they're the 4oz. pre-reduced Airbrush mix of each color.  The camera's not really doing the colors justice - isn't that always the case?

The colors are:  Marine Blue, So-Blue, Cobalt Blue (candy), and Passion Purple Pearl.

	Here's the truck before I began the process.  Shortly after this picture was taken, I scrubbed down the clear coat with some steel wool to give the surface some 'bite.'
	Taped off - you can see how dull the clear coat is now after hitting it with the steel wool.
	Here's the basic flame pattern.  I used some Marine Blue and So-Blue for the base colors.
	This is after I shot half a bottle of Passion Purple Pearl over the blue flames.  I let the 'pearl' part of the paint settle and used just the 'candy' portion to get these colors.
	Here's the other side before clear coat..
	And finally, here's a shot outside (on a cloudy day) after the clear coat was put down.  I'm hoping for some better pictures in the future.