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.
05.19.2021
Painting a Fox Racing inspired Custom Marin Frame
We cut the zebra stripes using a high-resolution vector pulled straight from the digital artwork, which allows us to stay as close to the original artwork as possible. The next step was to take the cut vinyl mask and apply it to the sections getting the zebra treatment. Once applied we hit the frame with a bright white which finished off the last part of the design and it was then ready to be revealed. There’s an almost ASMR level of satisfaction to demasking a paint job, as in a lot of instances it’s the first time you’ll see the whole design come together. A bike as bright as this one needed to be as loud as possible, so we gave it a good coat of gloss lacquer and even included a subtle pearl glitter flake which really stepped the whole paint scheme up a few notches. With the frame fully painted, it went back to Marin to be built up and has since adorned a very lucky wall at Fox’s European HQ. Maybe one day we’ll see it out on a trail, but if we do we’re sure to need some sunnies to look at it!
Check out the video and gallery below to see how we created this insanely LOUD frame!