The Official Blog of the IZOD IndyCar Series

July turned out to be another busy month for the JLF Designs team. EJ Viso was making a flying visit to the UK so we arranged to have a helmet painted while he was here so he could take it back with him to the US. The design was another variation of the “Orbital” design EJ has been using which has proved very popular. This one had the concentric circles in the Lotus yellow and green to match his race car, with a matt finish.

EJ Viso's new helmet design

July is also the month of the British Formula One Grand Prix so we had special designs for our F1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Paul Di Resta (cousin of IZOD IndyCar Series driver Dario Franchitti). Patriotic flags was the theme for these designs, with Lewis’s design featuring 3D Union Jack flags as well as the flag of Grenada where his family originally came from. Metalflake/sparkle paint was used almost everywhere – even on some of the logos, which made this design really stand out under sunlight and the garage lights.

Lewis Hamilton's new helmet design

Pauls’ design was a combination of the Scottish Saltire and the Union Jack with an outline of the Silverstone circuit on the back. Paul wanted a clean, classic design that would be recognisable from the spectator grandstands while still having a bit of airbrush flair.

Paul Di Resta's new helmet design

Also pictured is a helmet that we recently painted for a customer who wanted a design based on the BMW Art Car designed by Jeff Koons. Every stripe and colour was hand-painted on to give a design that is pretty different from most race designs on the track! We love getting unusual designs to paint and will be soon painting a helmet based on a psychedelic Cream album cover.

Helmet designed by JLF Designs team

The paintshop is as full as ever so we’ll hopefully have more photos to show soon. We’ve just received a helmet from the Indycar series organisers for Dan Wheldon to use in the test schedule for the rest of the year so the next blog should have photos of that helmet once it’s finished.

With the Indycar season opener at St-Petersburg right around the corner, ArtRotondo.com is hard at work making sure that our INDYCAR drivers have the finest and most original looking helmets on the grid. Through our previous IndyCar.com blogs we have been documenting our latest works for our Indycar drivers which follows with these newest creations. (Check out past posts here)

We’ll start with Belgian driver Bertrand Baguette who impressed many last season with his end of season surge to the front pack. He returns this year with his classic helmet design but this time on the brand new Schuberth SF1 carbon fiber helmet which is one of the most worldwide renowned and sought after helmet in all of racing. He will be sporting these tremendous lids throughout his 2011 season.

Bertrand Baguette's 2011 helmet design

Another one of our latest works is for the “comeback kid” himself, Mike Conway. Mike will be making his return this season with none other than Andretti Autosport and will be sure to make his comeback memorable. For the occasion, we tweaked Mike’s design just a tad to give him that extra “out of the box” look than his previous design from last season. To all who thought his helmet couldn’t get any nicer, well I think the pictures speak for themselves. It is simply a true honor to be doing Mike’s helmets and especially this year after all the rehabilitation and courage he showed after his major incident at the Indy 500, a true remarkable story which can only get better.

Mike Conway's 2011 helmet

Mike Conway's 2011 helmet

Finally we wanted to stay in the Andretti Autosport stable and present to the Indycar fans, the one that many believe to be the next American born open wheel prodigy Sage Karam. This season will be Sage’s first season in the Star Mazda series, after winning every championship in every category he has ever driven, Sage looks to continue his streak in the Star Mazda series in 2011 and to continue his climb in the Indycar ladder system.

Star Mazda Series Driver, Sage Karan's helmet

Star Mazda Series Driver, Sage Karan's helmet

Our crazy pre-season helmet rush is far from being over, we’re still creating unique designs for our Formula 1 drivers, Nascar drivers, ALMS drivers and, of course, for our IndyCar drivers,  so keep on checking back on the Indycar.com blog for all of our Indycar Series drivers helmets to come!

Now that the IZOD IndyCar Series has finished we haven’t got any IndyCar driver helmets at the workshop, so I’ve posted some pictures of the painting process on one of Ernesto Viso’s helmets.

The designs come from his cousin Juan Carlos in Milan and this is the information we work from on all of EJs’ helmets. We try to keep to the original concept as closely as possible, but we have the final say on colors, effects, etc. as designs often evolve along the painting process. As a helmet progresses we often think of additional touches and paint techniques that will enhance Juan Carlos’s designs.

E.J. Viso's SCARECROWd Helmet

The first step is to prep & primer-coat the helmet surface, so that the paint will key to the shell and stand up to the battering the helmets take during a race. Each section of the design is masked off and the colors are then airbrushed in one at a time.

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“EJ Viso is a long-time friend and customer of the team at JLF Designs and likes to use different themes for his helmet designs which relate to the track the helmet will be used at. His cousin Juanco is a designer working in Milan, Italy and he comes up with the ideas for the designs which we then translate into the painted artwork.

E.J. Viso's Nature Inspired Helmet Art

For the Canada races, EJ wanted a design that reflected the nature of the venues from a completely different perspective so Juanco went to work on some ideas and came up with a design featuring the Canadian Danaus Plexippus butterfly. Here’s his explanation of the inspiration behind the design:

Juanco:“Danaus plexippus / evolution baby: this precise family of butterfly is the National insect of Canada, that’s why we thought it would blend perfect on the Canadian scene. After all, to win, one has to move fast and alert on rainy Toronto and almost fly over the bumpy and tricky tracks of Edmonton…As a final detail we added the caterpillar that curls shaping the number 8…good metaphor for EJ’s Indy career evolution…”

Figure Eight Caterpillar

We set to work on the paintwork and the task of making the Butterfly fit the helmet shape without too much distortion. As the colours went on it became obvious that the solid shapes of the original design looked a little flat and not very lifelike so I used some rough airbrush texturing to give the colours a soft transition between the colours. Then when the paintwork was finished I used a gloss base for the white and a matt finish for the butterfly to give a contrast between the two, and to give the butterfly the soft, powdery look they have.

Wings for E.J.Viso

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Welcome to my first blog post! The past couple of weeks have been pretty hectic with some special designs being produced for some of our drivers. Here are some pictures of Lewis Hamilton’s helmet for the British F1 GP which featured Union Jack flags and a Grenada flag to celebrate his family’s Caribbean heritage.

Lewis Hamilton - Helmet Design

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