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That is a lot of layers! Amazing!
I come from a creative background (photography) so I always appreciate other people's advice, except telling me how to take my photos! Nobody tells me how to take my photos! ;-)
Whenever I get custom / bespoke things done, I don't see it as I am the customer and you do as you are told. I see it as a partnership and you know better than I do in whatever custom things you are making for me.
ExTra-
That's a solid approach. I like to think I'm the same.
Why go to a restaurant and tell the chef how to cook your dinner? Express a preference sure... but relinquish to their greater knowledge and experience. It's worth it. Maybe.
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This is straight up the best way to get the best end product possible.
The analogy I use the most is how it works with tattoos . I am covered in tattoos, ranging from awful to slightly better than awful... but it's only on the last 3 years or so out of the 17 I've been getting tattooed that I've realised the only way to get a truly top notch tattoo that will be seen as such for life most importantly by me, but also by others who are knowledgable in the world of tattooing, is to find an artist who's quality of work and skill is top notch, but most importantly has a unique style that You love. You then need to give that chosen artist a rough direction of what you want doing, and then just put your trust in him/her to come up with the goods.
Top notch finishing skills are very important in this line of work, but in my opinion, a custom painters best asset is their creativity. Anyone can paint a bike well with practice. Coming up with a paint scheme that pushes the boundaries and changes people's opinions of what's possible/considered the norm is what we should be doing.
It's. basically impossible to do anything that hasn't already been done before these days, but that shouldn't stop you trying.
general_greyharbour
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Cheers man.
Same as @hoops said.
The graphic elements on most projects are made of layers of masks and stencils. Designed and finessed in CAD programs and cut with digital plotters.
This is an example of the client having an idea and working with the painters to help perfect a technique to make the processes more straightforward and in this case a little less expensive. Keep that in mind when you show your ideas to your painter... if they say "we'll do your idea but change x y z" let them do it because they'll always have reasons and the finish you get will be better as a result.
For this particular finishe the bike was painted silver first (which is one of the standards using candy). Then a layer of green candy is added (candies are translucent products that get darker as layers are built up). After each layer of candy, a new wave of sausage dog shapes cut from masking vinyl were added... dogs, candy, dogs, candy... Then all the masks are removed while the paint is still wet. After that the whole thing is given a clear coat in order to seal the work and give an even substrate to continue working on. Once that's cured, it's flatted down and the yellow graphics are airbrushed on using stencils... Then clearcoat again and curing and polish.
Most projects are combinations of those steps I guess.