How would I go about achieving thiss kind of look? What I am getting at is, how do I get the first layer to be the same color as the body and then have a second layer of another color to go on top of that.
http://img.sportruck.com/events/atn04/91.jpg

Tim, in that pic, the painter laid out the outline of the blue flames and then covered them completely. Next he laid the outline of the green flames which actually appear in the background. He left them exposed while taping all the rest of the blue truck off. The only thing exposed for painting on that truck would have been the green areas. Then he probably went in and did the outlining and drop shadows before clearing the whole truck. That's my unproffessional opinion on how I would have done it. Thats alot of taping,lol.

70c10 That's not unprofessional that's the only logical way good thinking.

The most work that is done on a flame job is the tape job. There is usually very little paint involved. The picture above had a gentleman that could use an airbrush to create a depth or tint illusion of depth in his design. the green was painted on and the flame outlines were airbrushed to give it an effect of depth. This is the kind of guy that does not sleep in his bed, he just leans against the wall for a minute or two when he is tired, because he loves his work

I recently got the book "Monster Garage - How to customize damn near anything" and there's a huge section on custom paint in there. I thought that the book was just going to be another cheap "picture book" of things on the show, but it really is a great book for painting and other types of work. It tells you a lot from custom flames to the concrete look to all sorts of things in between. Give the book a try, it really is worth the money!