Paint Schemes

[Flymu2]

Thinking of having my Eagle painted over the winter. Any suggestions of where to look at pictures of paint schemes?

[co2bruce]

There are hundreds of examples in the photo section of this forum

[Jamie]

That's not bad advice, actually, depending on your budget. This place comes up often in these discussions:

 

http://schemedesigners.com/

 

But wow... expensive. And since I don't really need a custom job (just adapt something the shop has probably already done), I can probably get what I want with a picture.

 

You might go at it backwards.. find a paint shop (the really hard part, apparently) and ask them if they can recommend a designer. The designer isn't nearly as critical as the people who will be disassembling, stripping and painting your plane.

[KSMooniac]

A bunch of us here have used a freelance scheme designer that makes great Mooney schemes and they cost a lot less than the place linked above... Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk 4

[Jamie]

who?

[KSMooniac]

I'll PM you his contact info.

[fantom]

I'll PM you his contact info.

 

Beat me to it Scott. The freelance guy is great, and isn't 'scheming' to pick your pocket, like that other place.

[PTK]

Word of caution.

 

Don't underestimate schemedesigners. It's very easy to hand a picture to a paint shop and ask them to reproduce it. The results will not be perfect. Craig at Schemedesigners provides the shop with detailed measurements produced with digital precision. This is an extremely valuable service to the final result. Some paint shops don't like these details because it makes them work hard. Top shops who care about their work will welcome it.

 

In the scheme of things (no pun intended!) if you're going to spend thousands and thousands to paint an airplane the cost of a professional design is very very small. It's worth every penny.

[M016576]

Word of caution.

Don't underestimate schemedesigners. It's very easy to hand a picture to a paint shop and ask them to reproduce it. The results will not be perfect. Craig at Schemedesigners provides the shop with detailed measurements produced with digital precision. This is an extremely valuable service to the final result. Some paint shops don't like these details because it makes them work hard. Top shops who care about their work will welcome it.

In the scheme of things (no pun intended!) if you're going to spend thousands and thousands to paint an airplane the cost of a professional design is very very small. It's worth every penny.

I honestly thought the whole concept of someone to draw up your scheme for you and charge a pretty penny was complete BS. But after seeing the results on PTK's plane, if I ever do the whole repainting thing again, I'll be using a scheme designer / "art-eest".

[carusoam]

Peter's plane is extra nice from 3 to 300 feet away. It's original and unique.

Getting the design work up front makes sense. This way you can try on different styles and colors until you like what you see.

There are no new factory paint jobs to copy any more...

Best regards,

-a-

This doesn't work for every plane type... Some plastic planes still look like Orcas no matter what color or style you paint them.

[M016576]

Peter's plane is extra nice from 3 to 300 feet away. It's original and unique.

Getting the design work up front makes sense. This way you can try on different styles and colors until you like what you see.

There are no new factory paint jobs to copy any more...

Best regards,

-a-

This doesn't work for every plane type... Some plastic planes still look like Orcas no matter what color or style you paint them.

Yeah, the plastic planes have a "unique" look, particularly with the welded gear... But that darned tail on our mooney's kind of ties our hands for design work- you can only do that reverse wave swoosh look so many ways....

[KSMooniac]

All the more reason to go with Brian Smith... he used to own a Mooney and has done many excellent designs for our planes.  I like all of his work much better than the other place.  The big bonus is the price is so much less too...

[M016576]

All the more reason to go with Brian Smith... he used to own a Mooney and has done many excellent designs for our planes. I like all of his work much better than the other place. The big bonus is the price is so much less too...

Your plane has a beautiful design as well... I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that before in other threads... More fuel for the designer fire...

[KSMooniac]

Thanks!  I started out with a much different concept in mind, but by the time we iterated through the process, we ended up with what I think works perfectly on a mid-body Mooney.  It is also unique compared to any factory scheme, and I like that aspect of it.  I started with a mid 2000's Ovation swoopy scheme and his versions of it were much better than the factory IMO.  He's got some great ideas about what works and doesn't on a Mooney, and many other planes for that matter.

[Jamie]

Anyone have any hard numbers on things like paint choice (colors, brands), number of colors, complexity, etc. and their effect on total price? I -assume- the more colors you use, and the more complex the design, the more expensive, but I'm curious if how quickly the price goes up. White + something else seems to be the overwhelming choice, but do you think a base color other than white is a negative resale item?

[KSMooniac]

Certainly the more colors and more complex the scheme, the higher the price.  Remember that each stripe and detail must be masked, so it just becomes a matter of labor hours.  Extra colors mean extra paint steps and drying time in between.  Metallic colors cost more than non-metallic because they must be clear-coated.  I wouldn't necessarily change my scheme because of those factors, though, because the incremental cost isn't a lot more unless you go nuts with a show-quality job that is clear-coated and polished to high perfection. (like this awesome job:  http://www.n252q.com/2008/04/paint-step-4-chromaillusion-pure-fire.html)

 

Paint can be a negative resale item if done poorly, and by poorly I mean in terms of a scheme that is poorly conceived or poorly executed, as well as color choice.  Some colors won't be "in" 10 years from now, while others are classics and would be much easier to sell.  Green on vehicles was popular in the 90s and now you don't see it hardly at all, as one example.  A poster (that isn't active lately) here painted his G with a high-dollar job from Tejas in LSU colors (yellow and purple) because of his school pride.  That's fine of course, but you can bet he won't recover much, if any, of the paint investment whenever he chooses to sell.  I went with my school colors (Texas A&M) but in my case I think maroon is a LOT more appealing on a Mooney and doesn't necessarily mean the plane is an Aggie, whereas a yellow and purple one leaves little doubt.      Similarly you don't see many burnt orange planes for good reason.  

 

I think some schemes with silver as a base color instead of white look great.  Cirrus has some great color combos IMO besides white.  I wasn't brave enough to go down that road, though, but I think it can be done nicely.

 

It is fun to dream up the schemes and go through the iteration process.  Use your imagination and get started!

[carusoam]

The LSU was as memorable as the orange BMW layout....

Best regards,

-a-

[aviatoreb]

Where did that bright orange acclaim that looks like a clown fish go?  It was orangemtl wasn't it?  Now that's a paint job!

[RJBrown]

I painted my Rocket N231NH about 15 years ago. That was before swoopy lines and scheme designers. I copied  side and a top views onto legal size sheets of paper and tried probably a hundred versions. Played with the shapes and colors for weeks. Once I finalized the scheme I showed the painter where each color and line should break. N11620 caught my eye when looking for other schemes on the net recently.