Matt contacted Fulltron this past week with this question. “I don’t know exactly what I want for a paint design for my RV-7A. Should I hire a professional designer to create a custom paint scheme for my plane, or can you guys help me design my own paint scheme?”
Fulltron’s paint shop gets this exact same question at least 2-3 times every month. So here is what we tell every RV builder who asks us this question.
FIRST: Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. And every RV builder has different likes, dislikes and tastes. The only thing that matters is if YOU like the paint job on your RV.
SECOND: When going from a 2D printout of an RV paint design, to actually painting a three-dimensional RV in real life, with curved surfaces, NACA vents, seems where skins, overlap etc, a couple things often stand out to our paint crew.
One thing that we see on a regular basis, is that there is a stripe, or where two colors join, go thru a NACA vent, go along a seam where two pieces of skin meet, or cross over a canopy or door. Often times, by moving s stripe an inch or two from what was in the design printout, can save hours of work for the paint crew, which saves you money on your paint job. And simple minor changes can make your paint job look better.
THIRD: Do you actually own the rights to the professional design that you paid for? AND do you get the digital files of your design. Read the contract carefully. Did the designer copyright YOUR design so you don’t actually own it? Do you get the digital files of your design, or do you have to pay extra for them?
FOUR: This is what Fulltron tells RV builders who inquire about designing a custom paint scheme for their RV. We very seldom see anything really original on any paint design, even those done by “professional” designers. All that they do, or you will do if you do your own design, is take designs, or parts of designs, from the thousands of painted planes that you have seen in your life, and take those different “looks”, put together with your own likes, tastes, and flair, along with your favorite colors, to create YOUR very own custom design.
Everybody already has something in mind for their RV’s paint job. Maybe it’s just the basic colors that they like, or it’s pictures of other planes paint jobs that they like, or maybe it’s just certain features from other planes. Maybe they like the fuselage stripes on one plane that they saw, and maybe the tail design on another plane, and maybe the cowling from still another plane that they saw. And the colors from yet another plane. The majority of our RV paint jobs are designed by the builder, with our help, by them showing us all the different looks that they like from other planes (Google RV aircraft photos, and you’ll see hundreds, maybe thousands, of RV’s to stimulate your creativity) along with their favorite colors, and then we sit down with the builder to combine all the things that they like, and tweak it, until the builder not only likes the design, but has a TRUE one-of-a-kind custom RV design THAT THEY CREATED THEMSELVES! And they saved possibly thousands of dollar by creating their own custom look with Fulltron’s help. And while we are sitting down with them we also make sure that they are aware of NACA vents, and canopies etc. that might complicate, and increase costs, of painting their RV. When Fulltron sits down with you and helps you create your perfect custom RV paint job, there’s no extra cost, it’s part of our paint job. And you own the design.
We hope that this post has given you some insight, and ideas, for designing the perfect custom paint job for your RV.
IF you have any questions about painting your RV, even if you are doing the painting yourselves, feel free to email me at dan@fulltronaviation. Our crew at Fulltron has built nine experimental aircraft ourselves, including an RV-6, RV-10, RV-12 and an RV-14. We’re real RV’ers and we like to help other RV’ers, just like other builders on VAF have helped us when we were building our own RV’s.
Dan
FulltronAviation.com
[email protected]
Fulltron’s paint shop gets this exact same question at least 2-3 times every month. So here is what we tell every RV builder who asks us this question.
FIRST: Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. And every RV builder has different likes, dislikes and tastes. The only thing that matters is if YOU like the paint job on your RV.
SECOND: When going from a 2D printout of an RV paint design, to actually painting a three-dimensional RV in real life, with curved surfaces, NACA vents, seems where skins, overlap etc, a couple things often stand out to our paint crew.
One thing that we see on a regular basis, is that there is a stripe, or where two colors join, go thru a NACA vent, go along a seam where two pieces of skin meet, or cross over a canopy or door. Often times, by moving s stripe an inch or two from what was in the design printout, can save hours of work for the paint crew, which saves you money on your paint job. And simple minor changes can make your paint job look better.
THIRD: Do you actually own the rights to the professional design that you paid for? AND do you get the digital files of your design. Read the contract carefully. Did the designer copyright YOUR design so you don’t actually own it? Do you get the digital files of your design, or do you have to pay extra for them?
FOUR: This is what Fulltron tells RV builders who inquire about designing a custom paint scheme for their RV. We very seldom see anything really original on any paint design, even those done by “professional” designers. All that they do, or you will do if you do your own design, is take designs, or parts of designs, from the thousands of painted planes that you have seen in your life, and take those different “looks”, put together with your own likes, tastes, and flair, along with your favorite colors, to create YOUR very own custom design.
Everybody already has something in mind for their RV’s paint job. Maybe it’s just the basic colors that they like, or it’s pictures of other planes paint jobs that they like, or maybe it’s just certain features from other planes. Maybe they like the fuselage stripes on one plane that they saw, and maybe the tail design on another plane, and maybe the cowling from still another plane that they saw. And the colors from yet another plane. The majority of our RV paint jobs are designed by the builder, with our help, by them showing us all the different looks that they like from other planes (Google RV aircraft photos, and you’ll see hundreds, maybe thousands, of RV’s to stimulate your creativity) along with their favorite colors, and then we sit down with the builder to combine all the things that they like, and tweak it, until the builder not only likes the design, but has a TRUE one-of-a-kind custom RV design THAT THEY CREATED THEMSELVES! And they saved possibly thousands of dollar by creating their own custom look with Fulltron’s help. And while we are sitting down with them we also make sure that they are aware of NACA vents, and canopies etc. that might complicate, and increase costs, of painting their RV. When Fulltron sits down with you and helps you create your perfect custom RV paint job, there’s no extra cost, it’s part of our paint job. And you own the design.
We hope that this post has given you some insight, and ideas, for designing the perfect custom paint job for your RV.
IF you have any questions about painting your RV, even if you are doing the painting yourselves, feel free to email me at dan@fulltronaviation. Our crew at Fulltron has built nine experimental aircraft ourselves, including an RV-6, RV-10, RV-12 and an RV-14. We’re real RV’ers and we like to help other RV’ers, just like other builders on VAF have helped us when we were building our own RV’s.
Dan
FulltronAviation.com
[email protected]
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