A Pulse Storm is brewing...

nausea

Retro Guru
Just finished this project so final pictures are on their way directly after this but thought I'd show a few progress pictures before hand as it was an interesting process...

I've taken a slight different angle on this than normal as I've used Craftmaster Coach Enamel paint rather than the more normal, automotive style paint system used for bikes. Craftmaster Paint is the type used for canal boats and steam engines and seeing as I have about £1000 worth of paint left over from my boat painting days it seemed sensible to use that...

The main differences in the method I've used here is brush application and matching undercoat colours. In the world of boat painting, painting a strong colour over a white undercoat is something I could never bring myself to do! However, I've come to accept that this is not quite such a cardinal sin with bike paint schemes as the clear coat provides an extra layer of protection that is not present on most boat paint jobs - clear coat is more often just used to give UV protection to intricate artwork.

Anyway, here'sl a picture documenting some of the process... Once the frame had been stripped and etch primed we have two coats of colored undercoat brushed on, then two coats of the top coat colour brushed on. I like brushing the paint because it builds up the layers much thicker and I can just do it inside with no complex set up. The finish is just as good because the brush marks all but disappear on the convex surface of the tubing. The fading was then airbrushed on over the top of that with the masking and airbrushing of the cloud section added at the end.
 

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Ok, main finished picture! A few more detail pics to follow...

I scoured the Internet and studied pretty much every Storm picture in existence. I was interested to find that it seems this paint scheme is open to interpretation to some extent. For example, Tinkers famous Storm Adroit is very different to the more modern versions.

For my version I have used RAL 4003 coloured pink paint (neons are not available in this paint system). The purple and violet I just mixed myself from the paint I have - exact colour codes seem to be hard to pin down. The cloud section has a white base then layered purple, violet and then pink on top. The lightening was hand painted with a lining brush then lightly airbrushed over the top. The whole thing was finished off with two brushed coats of clearcoat.

It's slightly different from what seems to have become the standard interpretation of this scheme but I'm more than happy with the result - particularly as this was my first go with an airbrush!
 

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...and here are some more pics. I've got another couple of Pulse frames and potentially a Mantra that will probably get the same treatment because I'm interested in perfecting the technique for this paint scheme. There are a few tiny things I'd like to improve but as I mentioned I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.
 

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