Before you begin, you'll need a pencil, a wide magic marker, eraser, masking tape, some paper large enough to trace your fairing onto, an x-acto knife, possibly some scissors, some newspaper and a can of spray enamel paint in the color that you want the flames to be.
The first step was to make a paper template of the flames at the actual size that they'll be on the fairing. To do this, lay the fairing face down on a large piece of paper and trace around it to get an outline to work with. Once you have the outside dimensions of the shield, fold the paper down the middle of the outline. Get out a soft pencil and a good eraser and begin sketching in some flames on one side of the folded piece and within the confines of the outline that you traced from the shield itself. By doing it on one side only you can ensure that the two sides will be symmetrical once you cut it out. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
First, you'll have to determine how far up the windshield you want the flames to go. I put the very tops of them about half way up to leave plenty of room to see through the thing, since that's what the shield is for!! (after all...) Once you've sketched in a set of flames that you're happy with, tape the folded piece together lightly so that the two sides don't shift while you cut out the outline of the flames with a pair of scissors, or better yet an X-acto knife. Open it up and you'll have a perfectly symmetrical set of flames that should fit perfectly onto your windshield. (This works just like the snowflakes you may have made in school as a kid!!).
Now prep the surface of the shield by giving it a good wiping down with alcohol. This will get all of the bugs, tar, oil, wax and other "crud" off of the shield so that it'll take the paint better.
At this point, you'll need the masking tape and newspaper to mask out the flames with prior to painting them. I recommend using 1" (2 cm) masking tape, since it's wide enough to cover well, but not so wide that it's hard to work with. Beginning from the bottom, cover the front of the fairing with overlapping strips of tape up to slightly above the point where the flames will stop. Wrap the tape around the edges too. Use the newspaper and tape and continue to cover the rest of the shield so that the overspray won't get on other areas of the shield . The key is to have the areas to be painted covered completely and evenly, as you'll have to cut the flame pattern into the tape next.
Now lay the template that you cut out over the taped area and secure it down lightly so that it won't move. Take the wide magic marker, hang it just over the edge and trace over the entire edge of the paper template to transfer the outline of the flames to the tape. Once you've done this, cut out the outline carefully with an exacto knife. Don't press too hard, just hard enough to score the tape without cutting into the shield. When you get near the edges, you may want to cut just inside the shield edge by about 1/4" (about .5 cm) so that there will be a clear border around the flames on the sides. This is what I did. This will make the edge look like it was intended to stop short of the edge and eliminates having to paint around the corner.
Now comes the fun part. Once it's all cut out and masked, peel out the area inside of the "flame line" that you just cut as if it were a sticker. This exposed area is what you'll be painting. Find a nice clean area with good ventilation and as little dust, dirt, insects, etc. as you can to paint in. Paint it with short overlapping strokes, similar to how you laid down the tape. When painting, remember that several thin coats with a few minutes of set up time between them will give you the best finish. You've spent all this time on getting to this point, so don't rush the painting.
Once you have about three coats on the shield, the thin spots should be gone and it should start to take on a nice even finish. One more light coat at this point will do it. Let it dry for about 1 hour and then peel off the tape. It's better to do this before it dries 100%, because the edges tend to stick to the tape if it's fully dry and may lift up the paint, which you want to avoid. Let it dry for 24 hours, buff it to a nice shine with some good wax, put it onto your bike and gloat in how cool you're going to look out on the road.
