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Apps or programs for designing a paint scheme - RV-8??

N

Notso

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Like the thread title says, are there any programs out there where you can play with various designs, colors, livery, etc. I am planning on repainting the aircraft early next year and I have an idea of what I want - WWII Mustang-like scheme - but I'm going back and forth on how some actual real life Mustang Schemes would look on the RV. My idea is I want to use a scheme and livery from my previous Squadron when I was active duty whose lineage was a famous WWII fighter Sq.

I've looked at lots of pics of various RV-8 "warbird" paintjobs - and they've given me some great ideas - but none are exactly what I think I want. So hoping there is something out there where I can adjust paint schemes around on the computer to visualize exactly what I'm thinking about.

Thanks!
 
I went down the path of DIY'ing my paint scheme many years ago, and then finally just paid one of the experts to work with me. I used Craig at Scheme Designers. At that time, it was much cheaper than it is today, but what isn't? In the end, the company that painted my aircraft also had a design service which I took advantage of, and I took the output to Craig for final suggestions. I'm very happy with the result, and shudder to think of what it would have looked like if it I had not used these professional artists. They also did a nice desk model for me.

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Aircraft painting Van’s RV8 HB-YMM | AEROSTYLL France

Discover in photos all the stages of aeronautical decoration of the Van’s RV8 HB-YMM in our workshop based in Occitania : painting and aircraft maintenance
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Evoke Aircraft Design has a paint scheme design group that's similar to what Scheme Designers provides. Both companies do very good work and are familiar with RVs. Evoke designed my paint scheme and they were very easy to work with, taking my basic ideas and crafting them into something that's aesthetically pleasing as well as achievable for the paint shop.
 
Old school - a box of colored pencils and some xerox’ed copies of Van’s three-view drawing! Come on, we were all doodling airplanes in our notebooks in grade-school…right? Bring back that inner child!

If nothing else, its a way to get your ideas down so that you can take them to you paint shop, or a fancy designer to flesh out.
 
You can download 3-view CAD drawings from Van's. Then use AutoCAD or equivalent to draw your ideas. You can fill the shapes with "hatch" command in various colors. That's what I did 19 years ago.

Also, a tip for laying out the paint scheme on the fuselage and wings: use an LCD projector to project the drawing onto the airplane and then use narrow vinyl masking tape to follow the projected lines. That worked much better than trying to eyeball the curves based on a small paper drawing.

AutoCAD drawing:
1763140382570.png
1763140539375.png
 
Ironflight said:
Old school - a box of colored pencils and some xerox’ed copies of Van’s three-view drawing! Come on, we were all doodling airplanes in our notebooks in grade-school…right? Bring back that inner child!

If nothing else, its a way to get your ideas down so that you can take them to you paint shop, or a fancy designer to flesh out.
Click to expand...
Just one step above that, I used Mayura Draw way back and someone was selling vector three-views of the RV models. I blundered around the program and eventually came up with three color variations on a theme; red, blue, yellow, printed them out and taped them to the wall by the door for a few months. My eyes always went to the red version, so that was the one!
 
Ironflight said:
Old school - a box of colored pencils and some xerox’ed copies of Van’s three-view drawing! Come on, we were all doodling airplanes in our notebooks in grade-school…right? Bring back that inner child!

If nothing else, its a way to get your ideas down so that you can take them to you paint shop, or a fancy designer to flesh out.
Click to expand...


Nothing says old school like using the word "xerox'ed"!!! I know because I still use it every day!😂😂😂😂😂
 
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D-Dubya said:
Evoke Aircraft Design has a paint scheme design group that's similar to what Scheme Designers provides. Both companies do very good work and are familiar with RVs. Evoke designed my paint scheme and they were very easy to work with, taking my basic ideas and crafting them into something that's aesthetically pleasing as well as achievable for the paint shop.
Click to expand...
I stopped talked to the guys from Evoke this at Osh. They were a little surprised when I told them that I was doing their designs back when they were called Plane Schemer.
 
Ironflight said:
Old school - a box of colored pencils and some xerox’ed copies of Van’s three-view drawing! Come on, we were all doodling airplanes in our notebooks in grade-school…right? Bring back that inner child!

If nothing else, its a way to get your ideas down so that you can take them to you paint shop, or a fancy designer to flesh out.
Click to expand...
Like this!
 

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