Cabronita Thinline: Hot Rod Flames?

I've been looking hard at the Thinline Cabronita build over the last few days with its large expense of seafoam green and only a very small pickguard.

That's a lot of green maybe?

Of course there's lashings of chrome to go on there too, but maybe, just maybe, there's a little too much seafoam. My Surf Monster Telecaster, which I absolutely love, used exactly the same shade of MTN94 paint, but nearly half is covered in pickguard! I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that this Cabronita might need something else.

So the question is what? I've been browsing the interwebs looking at racing stripes and other simple paint modifications, but nothing in that area seems to speak to me. Really, given the decided rockabilly-surf-crossover vibe of this build, wouldn't hot rod flames be the go? If you're not a fan of the rockabilly scene and the style it brings, then maybe flames might seem a bit tacky, but I kinda have a soft spot for them. To be honest, I think they worked really well on my son's BC Rich Avenge build - even if I do say so myself. Maybe I could give them another go?

Here's my first go at a concept for the paint job. I've sketched around the pickguard, but have ignored the placement of pickups, bridge and tremolo.

Hot Rod flames concept art ready for frisket if the mood takes me.

In terms of colour, I'm not thinking of anything nearly as drastic as with the Avenge paint job. I was thinking that this time around I could do a a very subtle flame made up of the current body colour, with a background colour only one shade darker.

Here's some colour quickly splashed over my concept art using photoshop. Of course the black edges around the flames would not be there in the final paint job. What do you think?

White or black pickguard? Black looks good with the outlines flames but..

I'm liking the idea, but I'm still not sold. I'm going to ruminate on this for a few days and see how I'm feeling after that.. I've got some MTN94 Bali Green in the post, so maybe a test or two with that will make my mind up for me.