What a difference a line makes

I wasn't able to mount the new front wheel and tire combo yet, nor the forks tubes or the clip-ons and other bits I wanted to this weekend, but it was still a productive time again. Sort of. I guess there's maybe never enough time to get to all the things I wanted to; certainly not enough money to do that, either. But I did manage to continue to disassemble, deconstruct and otherwise throw out things no longer needed.

Always a fun part.

(though there is getting fewer and fewer things that fall into that category, so this fun part is very soon fall into the 'careful now you're gonna need that later' category).

Anyway, there's one thing I've been seeing in my head the last couple weeks that I did get to try out in a practical real-world i.e.: it's really happening and not just in my head sort of thing (always good to differentiate what's real and not...).  The stock 1983 Yamaha Virago gas tank. It's not what you'd call a fine example of modern engineering or motorcycling greatness. Still, very Harley for 1980's and was probably also very appropriate for the cruiser mentality this bike was originally created to be.

But it has curves. And generally I really like curves. A lot.

OK. Now, moving on...

Anyway, here's the tank, in it's pre-" I'm sort of still working on the primer stage" glory:

It's fine. It's a tank. But it bugs me. Wrong look. Too curvy, too loose. And there are many aftermarket tanks I can throw on this build that will fix this right up. But the budget doesn't have room for that and the conscious won't allow not buying groceries for my son. Go figure.

So, onto the fix. I wanted to confirm the voices in my head (enough on that part) and check out how it looks. So grab some electrical tape for a quick experiment. By just adding a simple black line across the bottom of the tank I can straighten out the curves:

Levels it out. Makes a little more sense now. Follows that line of the subframe/seat and carries it through to the front of the bike. And regardless what I do to the tank design or color I choose or stripes or no stripes, I think I'm gonna do this little black lines across the bottom. The curve is still there obviously, but by using color to mask things you want people to notice and using other colors to hide or downplay things you want to hide... I can improve the visual cues to make the whole bike look more balanced and more together.

Which is more than I can say for the voices in my head. They're always up to no good.