i've been reading books that joann bortles of crazy horse painting writes, and she's well known for custom painting chopper bikes. i've seen some of her work, and it's amazing what you can do with an airbrush. in one of her books she saw a design of what looked like roses, and up close it turned out to be skulls.
bortles kind of inspires me. but any of my ideas have been my own idea of beauty. a ribbon is a serene object, but the wheels tearing it up kinda gives an image of rampant chaos.
i'm into cars and bikes, and my boyfriend is as well. his influence drives me crazy with ideas sometimes. i've seen a lot of custom work in the few years i've been into custom auto painting and the ideal pinstripping and flames and skulls is like.. boring standard stuff to me. yeah its popular to hell, easily customizable, and will never disappear. but thats just it.. its so popular, that i rarely see anything different on the streets.
from a race scene forum i got a link of a custom "painted" lamborghini gallardo and it drove me absolutely insane. the entire thing was graffitied with black sharpie marker over a white base coat. it has to be the most beautiful thing i have ever seen. i dont even like lambo's that much but the paint job absolutely floored me. i would die to have a chance to do something like it with sharpies but of my own design. the effort put into this had to be colosal.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vodcars/sets/72157603104900070/ i would love to try something like this, but use like.. an eclipse auto paint which is a heat reactive black to white or blue to white color changing paint.