Body color of course? With the black flares, you are introducing a third color. Makes things too busy looking. Painted the body color, gives it a factory look. This is what I believe you are trying to achieve. Go Color keyed!

 

Almost every early Willys you see has fenders matching the body color, which is why my original plan was to paint these body color.



This morning I sprayed a paint sample to see if I could get a good match. Unfortunately the factory paint is Deep Cherry Red Crystal Pearl (code PRP), which is extremely expensive ($350 per pint). I've asked my friends at Elmira Auto Paint to scan the Jeep with their computer and see if it comes up with a match in the PPG Omni line. It came up with a GM color that's a 9 on a scale of 10 match so I had them mix up a few ounces. I sprayed it on a piece of fiberglass this morning:



It's impossible to tell from one photo, but at $90 per pint the Omni isn't a bad match, I've seen much worse matches done by body shops.

A friend over on Expedition Portal did this photoshop...



I'll probably do a few more photo edits of my own, I'll post them when I get to them.

But the black does look good too.

 

Speaking of black looking good... I got a few minutes to buff the fenders today, here's a few photos...

 

It looks great, all polished!

I know you've probably thought of this, but I had to see what it would look like with a mid-width or stubby bumper like many of us run. The rear of the fender would need to extend to the rock rail, to match the lines of the other fender edges. Here's my take on it:

 

I agree leaving them black makes it too busy, and I recall my choice on matching the fenders to the top. Overall body matching the paint on the fenders looks the best to me now, but hey its your Jeep.

Really like the end result on the flares.

 

I agree. I didn't extend the mold masters that much in the back because I don't have one of those bumpers so there was no reason for me to extend them for my current Jeep. I figure if a company signs up for these the mold masters can be extended before they make their production molds, it's a very easy mod to the masters. Then the company could offer them in several different lengths, or untrimmed if the buyer wanted a custom length.

 

Thanks.

I'm still thinking about the color, since I won't have time to paint them until late July/early August, I've got about a month to ponder it. Most likely I'll paint them the same color as the body, but I do like them in black too.

 

Here are some black and body color images for comparison. The colorized images below were done by a friend on Expedition Forum - it's nice having someone else do my work for me .

 

Those look great. As someone with Photoshop skills who also has some of your great projects on my Jeep- you can feel free to ask me for mockups, and if I have the time I'll be happy to paint some pixels.

 

Thanks, that's a very kind offer. I'm fairly competent at doing my own concept drawings, but this time my friend from the other forum beat me to it .

Today I ran the JKU through the car wash and then took some photos of the new fenders on a clean Jeep; I'll post them soon and I also plan to colorize the fenders in some of the photos, I'll post them as well as soon as I colorize them.