I took 3 photos of the stock V3D into Photoshop first... Top, bottom and right side views. I cut them out of the backgrounds and paint the planes white... this is your base. Now, using layers in Photoshop, I design the overall color/graphic scheme, right in Photoshop, not Illustrator. Once I'm happy with the overall scheme, I then go to Illustrator.

In Illustrator, I design all the logos, text, etc. and save them as EPS files. Now I go back to Photoshop and load the EPS logos in (rasterizing them) in PS. Now you bring those rasterized logos into your main Photoshop file as layers. You can scale, duplicate, reposition, etc. in Photoshop to position them on the different views of the plane. Before you know it, you've got your final, completed design.

Next, I print out a copy of my 3 Photoshop views and use it as a guide to hand-cut the Ultracote when covering the scheme. For the logos and text, I send the original Illustrator EPS files (vectored art) to the vinyl cutter, and tell him what size to cut them at, what colors, etc.

To figure the size of the vinyl graphics, you refer back to your Photoshop printout, measure and scale accordingly. For example, if the Vision wing is 40" long, and the same wing is 4" long on your print, you know your scale factor is 10%. So if the wing logo on the print is 1/5" long, you take that times 10 (15" inches) and tell the vinyl cutter that the logo should be cut at 15".

You only need to give him one size of the logo, then tell him what different sizes you need it cut at.

Here's a copy of my original V3D scheme done in Photoshop, with the Illustrator logos added into it. I modified it a little when I actually put it all on my plane, but overall it's pretty much the same design.

Hope this helps,

Tom