New fender art for BD3: TRANSMigra early works Pt II

It turns out that the land far away, new home of our BD3 replica, was actually Canada. The new owner found my other blog and contacted me about some additional work. One of these projects was new artwork on the fender. Jay was fond of his original endeavor there, so we swapped out the seat pan at the cost of painting labor and shipping.

Jay brought it over to Tim Dixon at Gas Axe, who had helped him build the "original" replica seat pan. Below is the rebuild, along with another rebuilt softail fuel tank.

Jeremiah received design approval for the top and bottom rocker banners so painting was upon us. The client wanted to galvanize the phrase from Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man : "It's better to be dead and cool than alive and uncool." Classic.

Banner outlines and lettering were freehanded from a scaled print of the concept illustration. Layers of pencil, pen, and then paint marker were used before applying final coats in 1-Shot enamel paints.

 We sure do miss that crappy old camera.

Above is the final paint job with several layers of clear coat. The skull on the fender is just under three quarters of the size we painted onto the gas tank, so it presented an extremely tedious task.

Fender artwork with replica grip tape detailing and Jay's insanely well crafted custom seat pad.

Black Death 3 : TRANSMigra early works Pt I

A bike fabricator in East Tennessee met an artist in Asheville, North Carolina. That's not us; it's a movie poster.

Our first collaboration was a replica of a cult classic bike - the Black Death 3 from 1991 smash hit Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. Above is a screen grab from the flick, the bike ridden by Mickey Rourke. He played the title role of "Harley Davidson" alongside Don Johnson as "The Marlboro Man"

 This is allegedly one of the Black Deaths in an aged state, perhaps the original Black Death 1 transferred from Mickey Rourke to Chuck Zito for restoration. These bikes were built by Gene Thomason of Bartels Harley Davidson in Los Angeles. The artwork provides quite a challenge as the hand painted lettering with skull and cards emblem is both iconic and unrefined.

 As you can see, many have tried to create replicas but have missed the mark.

Our bike builder Jay is not one to miss the mark. Here the bike is shown near completion, with the modified softail gas tank bearing only stencil outlines for the painter to do his magic.

 

Here we also enter into the mysterious relationship with this gas tank and multiple washing machines . . .

Our painter is also a perfectionist in his own right, and found the lettering to be a bit off. The biggest challenge was to add some meat to HARLEY DAVIDSON with very little breathing room in the letter registration.

Not bad for our first attempt . . .

Somehow Jeremiah managed to cut himself with a paint marker.

 In the early days, a crappy camera was involved to ensure authenticity.

We were able to reach that elusive zone between unpolished roughness and iconic presence.

Jay put his heart and soul into matching every detail of the bike within his control and the availability of parts. With the bike complete, it was delivered to an anonymous distributor and sold to a mysterious buyer in a land far away.