When Marin calls us talking about custom frames, we always get a little excited about what wild ideas they’ve got. From Matt Jones’ one-off Alcatraz frame for his Design & Conquer project with Red Bull, to the candy pearl coloured Alpine Trail we created for one lucky competition winner out in the US, there’s never a shortage of wild designs when it comes to custom Marin frames. For this frame, it was all about taking inspiration from the wild 80’s style Fox racing kits that have made a resurgence recently, as this frame would take pride of place at Fox’s European HQ. If you’re using 80’s MX kits as the theme, there’s only one way to go with colours. LOUD. We worked through a few different versions but settled on a bright fluorescent pink complete with zebra stripes and a subtle pearlescent glitter that took inspiration from some of the wild 80's themed kits we saw in the 2019 DH season. And they don’t come much louder than that.
With the frame stripped and primed it was ready to bring this wild design to life. When painting fluorescent pink, we use a light pink base coat over a plain white as it makes the final colour pop! Next up we mixed the fluorescent pink powder with a binder so we can get the right consistency for the best overall coverage. Once the loud pink was applied, we added masks in for the parts that would be staying pink including both the Marin and Fox logos. A quick coat of black paint meant the frame was then ready for the intricate masking that would create the zebra stripes from the kit we designed the frame from.