Flame on! Car Craft paint critique

If you're going to embellish the paint job on a muscle car, you have two options: stripes or flames. It's not so important which one you choose, as long as you make sure to get it right. Stripes seem relatively easy. On the other hand, painting a decent flame job must be really difficult, since there are so many crappy ones out there.

This Chevy Nova features unusual placement of flames on the trunk lid, but at least they look somewhat respectable. It should go without saying that I enjoy this shade of orange, since I chose it for the background of my blog.

The flames on this Chevelle SS 396 are a step up. Note the overlapping patterns and a complementary blue fading to black. I also like how the solid front side runs parallel with the lines of the car, rather than extending all the way to the grille.

Using green as a contrast color is very effective on this car, especially when combined with the evocative swirls of 'smoke' against a flat primary color. A solid lime green border makes it look sharp, not sloppy.

Here's the back of the same car. Notice that the flames cover only a small portion of the body, whereas too much coverage would be a mistake; the complicated pattern works best as an accent. Also observe the flames on the inside of the door, which I assume to be custom-stitched leather or vinyl. Nice!