The Fusion Projects – Custom Helmets for Royal Enfield

Continuing my collaboration under The Fusion Projects with motorcycle company – Royal Enfield, I was in Goa for three gorgeous days last week. It was hot and humid but oh so much fun. It was for The Royal Enfield Rider Mania 2018 – an annual community driven event in Goa in the third week of November. I painted two custom helmets. As always it is a joy and privilege to work with them – a company open to giving an artist free rein and willing to talk and listen. Rare clients, I say.

I worked on the initial design here in my studio in Bangalore and then took them to Goa. The idea was to paint onsite and complete them there. It was a blast. I painted for almost 5 straight hours that first day. The second was murder because the temperature was some 37 degrees. And everyone seemed to want to touch the helmets. This meant that the heat and dust along with the very generous ‘touching’ made the helmets ‘muddy’. So I took them back to my room that night washed them and finished the work in the room the next morning before handing them over to the Royal Enfield team. Done! My work was done.

These are raw fiber glass shells. They will now be taken to the factory to be kitted out with complete padding, visor etc.

It was such joy to see reactions from bikers and my fellow artist alike. I think on the whole everyone liked the work. This is always a good thing 😉 Continuing on the theme of ‘Warding off the Evil Eye’ from the tank I had painted for them in 2016, I painted Nazar Battoo/truck Art on one and ‘Shakti’ as the strength for today’s woman on the other.

The endeavor has been not just to paint a motorcycle helmet but to view the entire exercise in a new way. The helmets needed to look different from anything out there and still have my stamp on it. I understand that the older tank now fitted on a bike sits in the corporate office of Royal Enfield in Gurgaon. This after it has been ridden on the road by a few over the last two years. I was also told that the bike is usually referred to as ‘Aarohi’s Bike’. That instantly brings a smile to my face 🙂

The next step is to head on over to their factory and see the process of how helmets are made and how the surface design is applied to them. That makes it two visits to two different factories now pending in my ‘to do’ task list!! Soon I hope. Really soon.

Thank you Sachin Chavan (Head, Rides and Communities, Royal Enfield) and Samrat Som (Head, Creative Studio, Royal Enfield) for making this happen. Already looking forward to Rider Mania 2019!!

And here is a sneak peek of me in the Official Rider Mania 2018 Day 1 Video 🙂

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