thanks guys....

I am resisting the urge to do more painting on my plane and go to clear. But since my "other" job is slow and and I got time to play with my vector drawings, spray masks and airbrushes, what the heck.... I may just do some more painting this afternoon, then clear this weekend, I just want to be flying next weekend so I've got a little more time to play

I'll be sure to go over what I did to do that cool negative masked pearl paint effect on the canopy. It's actually fairly easy to do that canopy effect. It's also on my V2 that's on the other thread.

The cool thing is - I am trying to do all of my painting in a way that I can reproduce my art and do multiple planes that are matched, I've learned so much in the last couple years and doing the electric twins was a great learning experience.

Yes, it's all digital design, I am using both - CAD and the professional drawing program called Adobe Illustrator.

I have been designing my painting schemes on the full sized CAD drawings, that way I can design a spray mask that fit's perfectly. I've also developed a system to align my spray mask on the plane, I even have a way to design a spray mask to mask the canopy trim line. that swoosh of natural carbon on my canopy would be a bear to tape by hand and get both sides to match. With my spray mask, I was able to mask off my canopy in about 5 mins and it's perfectly symmetrical and repeatable.

I guess after Nats I will do a design and painting thread - I will show you guys how to do everything and all high end stuff that you see on those high dollar arfs...