I'm suffering information overload trying to come up with a new paint scheme for my latest frame. Been looking at photos until I'm blue in the face. My old scheme is passable but wanted to try something different. Anyway, the scheme I like turns out to be one of the more popular schemes (white/contrast color on head tube with a same color panel on the seat tube)...and for that reason I'm starting to hedge away. The other thing is that I want a scheme that isn't super difficult to execute. Tape lines I can do but not some panograph for fancy brush work.

Not sure there is much of a question here just posting so others can share their experiences. The first photo below is my existing scheme and the second & third is the scheme I'm leaning towards. Feel free to comment...

For two colors on lugged frames I like to have the lug edges define the two colors. For welded or fillet frames I like a panel. I went through the two recent threads you started and didn't see if you plan to do your own painting but I suspect you are. Certainly going with a paint design that you can execute well is better then one that if done well looks better but might not be done well Masking lug edges isn't rocket science but does require a lot of patience and care. The few I've done (and I lucky in that one of the painters I have used let me do all the grunt work) have been started over more then a few times. Once well masked the removal is the next step to screw up. Again care and patience is really important. Having a very sharp Xacto type blade is needed to shave both the initial masking job and the resulting paint during removal. Every masking job I've done has had some amount of touch up prior to clear coating. Here are two shots of both styles. Note that the filleted touring frames do have a lugged fork so that paint boarder is at the crown shore lines. BYW my late wife and I really lover the reverse colored jobs on the clup bikes, really striking to those with an eye for couples and their thing. Also note that the green/silver bikes have their panels positioned and sized to work with each bike's placement of bottle bosses. Andy

Your bikes look nice Andy. Masking around those lugs like that looks like a LOT of work though. I don't mind doing that (ONE time) on the head tube but don't want to repeat on the seat tube!

Your colors remind me that I've got a hodge podge of base coat paints left over from various projects. For the bulk of the frame I've got some medium dark metallic blue. I've also got some bluish metallic silver so thinking about using that for the contrasting color instead of the more common white. Can I do that and claim my paint job is "unique"?

There's nothing new under the sun. My frames merely reflect those who built before me. Feel few to borrow whatever I've seeded in your mind. Andy

contrasting panel on the headtube and seat tube is so classic that it doesn't matter if you copy it. What gets weird to my eye is if someone comes up with a clever scheme and then everyone starts copying it. I always wanted to have it different colors depending on which side of the bike you were on. That has been done a lot though.

Eric- I've seen a number of color sided bikes. Some with a concise border and others with a hazy/faded border. I rarely thought they looked more then interesting. That we usually see bikes at a changing angle, unlike photos with a fixed viewpoint, means that the two sides are usually both able to be seen and the amount of one side or the other, and the changing color that is the majority, is to my eyes somewhat distracting. Dawes, IIRC, had some bikes in the early 1990s with a white and blue side by side pattern. Maybe it was the tints used (the white looked like it had a few drops of blue in it) but I always thought they looked cheap, like a painted woman

Tonight I have the pleasure to begin the what color(s) to paint the newly completed frames with my wife. Andy

link to a bunch of paint on Kirk bikes paint jobs.....be forewarned IMHO will cause droolling, envy, and consideration of spending your child's college savings on a bike

Paint | Kirk Frameworks

this is nice, especially as you are looking at headbadges