5 Ball Racing Team Art

Art for t-shirts, hats, and stickers

This above art was done for Keith Ball's (Bandit of Bikernet.com), Bonneville efforts. At first he used the design below but, then he asked me to modify a unused design originally proposed for the Chop 'n' Grind team.


The first design. As usually Keith wanted a pin-up


The original Chop N' Grind art


Digital color study

The designs were kept simple using only black, orange, and yellow to keep the printing cost down for the t-shirts and stickers. The color study was later done for a painted version I did for Michael Litcher's Stay Gold show in Sturgis. After the painting came back from Sturgis, I wanted to do some additional work on it. When I get the time, I'll post the complete procedure (step by step), of the painting process on Bikernet and a link on this site.

LOOK...

what followed me home from the Long Beach MC Swap.

It's a "Lil" Indian.

I'm not sure what to do with it. The 5 inch tri-spoke wheels may not be original. From what I've seen and read, they offered 4" or 6" four spoke mags.


A nice restored one from: http://minidoodle.com/

The earliest models had Clinton 2 stroke engines. Then, Briggs and Strattons became a option, while later models used only Tecumsehs.


I also Gleeped this 1971"Lil" Indian brochure shot from the minidoodle site.

"Lil" Indian's are among the smaller minis that were manufactured and the same family has continued building them from 1959 to today. The history of this mighty mini is intertwined with Ruttman mini bikes which were made by the 1952 Indy 500 champ Troy Ruttman. They are one of the few brands of minis I like. During the late sixties and early seventies there were a ton of crappy and ugly minis made. Most of the best and coolest hale from (where it all started), CA. To me, Taco ranks top, followed by others like Flexo (Big Bear Scrambler), and Bonanza.

December is for mini bikes.