This 51 shoebox went from mild to wild with the help from a bunch of masking tape, paint and a whole lot of pinstriping. Crazy change.
Thanks guys. Im thinkin about doing something similar to my 56 Mercury. Or doing a Jack Arnold/watson clone.
I like traditional flames. If I want to see seaweed I'll put on my scuba gear and go diving! Besides, traditional flames are more cozy! Now saying all that you have a really good rendition of seaweed flames, a LOT of work just not my cup of tea. And what happened to your "handlebar"?
Love the early thin style flames. I never knew what they were called but my cool neighbor paints this style. He’s A old biker custom painter and great tin pecker
Hello, Having been close to seaweed for my whole life, the different styles or types of seaweed do not look like flames. Swimming in seaweed beds or paddling out in some glassy waves through a seaweed floaters. They have the calming effect on wind and so glassy waves are a possibility. But, being thrown down a wall of water infused with seaweed as one goes tumbling is not the best memory of surfing a large wave. So, I beg to differ on the writer’s caption of those flames calling it seaweed. The huge aquariums we used to go to from Palos Verdes, San Francisco and the smaller ones like the La Jolla Aquarium have tons of varieties of seaweed. Not one looks like the flames as we know of it today. Despite what they are called, flames are very cool. Learning to draw flames was an eye opener. Seeing all of the different styles from the progression of early scallops pointing back from the front end of a hot rod or custom car. As nice as they are, They all started with early scallops then the flame tips became combined with early “claw” flames to become the fancy swirls of the current trending style. As we learned to draw basic scallops, it was fun to cover our old Pee Chee notebooks with the edge designs. Then the scallops turned a little wavy and then the claws came into view. As odd as they looked, this was the start of our flames on our drawings and school notebook pages. The abundance of minimal flames was the original concept. Something to highlight the front fenders and hood. Or, coming from the motor compartment. Too much of a good thing is just too much. from play toys to helpful parts gatherers… Sometimes flames are even incorporated as an art drawing concept for a special delivery. Jnaki But, there is a drawing I have been looking at since 1948 that my mom had up on a small frame of our old Craftsman House in Long Beach . It was the famous Hokusai Wave painting. In those years, I always thought of it a simple painting. It was actually a wood cut art piece that over time, got reproduced on paper and cloth to represent his artwork. In 1831, no less… But, for us a small wall hanging in our first real house on the Westside Location. It would have been a prized possession, today, but over time and many house moves, we lost track of where it ended up. It was probably given to our next door neighbor, when we sold the last Westside of Long Beach house. She had been coming over to our house since birth and grew up to be an executive of a major company. She loved our mom and we gave most of our mom’s stuff they always used to enjoy together. Guess what is on that giant wave? A ton of little claws in the letter “c” form to create the whitewater tips of a crashing wave. No, AI, no machine help of any kind, a simple tap of a wood carving tool shaped like a “c” on the tip to create a little claw. With a little curve here and there, out comes a 50s style claw flames making the current flame history go back a 100 plus years for its origin. Little curves in the sharp blade tips of wood carving tools create a perfect blend of the letter “C” or a claw. These tools have been around for centuries for wood block prints. Note: So, the name associated with flames as we know it today could not be anything far away from the actual floaters in deep waters of all oceans and local aquariums. At least sitting in front of a bonfire at the beach at night, whether it was down in Baja Mexico or just down the sand on the state beaches, the flames that shoot up from the fire pits. They are the claw version and sometimes, one will see an actual long skinny stretched out flame design in a blink of an eye. But, seaweed? Nahhhh!!! YRMV
I thought of that 57 right away. I had a black 57 Buick 2dr Ht back in the day so his always stuck with me
The Jalopy Journal
