Ghost flames on a hard body?

[Burniefloyd 0]

I am probably in over my head but my plan for this truck was to have some ghost flames under the paint. I am not am expert but I (sigh..) watched some YouTube videos and the main point was to use a translucent paint over the flames. Now these were not rc related but I figured (hoped) it should carry over.

I primed, painted the flames and did 2 Coates of Tamiya translucent orange but as you can see in the pics it doesn't seem to be covering.  

Should I keep going and hope for the best or bail out now? The orange isn't the shade I was hoping and right now it looks like a Bengal tiger which kinda sucks..

[Shodog 1835]

A light spray is what’s need with ghost flames. Use the negative of a flame stencil and just spray edges with the center of the flames little to no paint. 

[jonboy1 2943]

Keep going with the orange, it will eventually go almost opaque given enough coats. It might be worth getting a translucent red and adding a fade at the front edges of the panels to add a bit of depth.

I'm going to shamelessly flaunt the flames i painted on my sorely missed Pumpkin to explain about the fade. It's basically the same principle, just instead of a clear coat you would use the orange/red.

 

[Burniefloyd 0]

14 hours ago, Shodog said:

A light spray is what’s need with ghost flames. Use the negative of a flame stencil and just spray edges with the center of the flames little to no paint. 

Makes sense. The flame got away frome. When I masked up the truck and started drawing the flames the intention was more like jonboy's masked picture. 

I am going to rethink if I want to try it again or go with some pinstriping.