software for painting a bus

[gm4106]

I'm looking for some kind of software, where I could take a picture of my bus. And try different colors and strips. I have one now that I tryed. You have to use a paint brush. But the body lines go a way. And all you have is a painted bus with no body lines. Any info will be good
Thanks
Bob

[FloridaCliff]

Bob,

Try Microsoft paint.....

It is probably on your computer under accessories...

A little primitive, but FREE..

Cliff

[Jeremy]

You could use the outline you already have (which presumably is correct for your bus), but in a different package - Paintbrush (or Paint) is horribly basic. If you use something like Photoshop that allows transparent layers you will be able to avoid erasing the underlying outline picture, and you could also have different paint and graphic designs on the go at the same time, and compare them easily and quickly by just switching layers on and off.

Sign makers and people who do car graphics with vinyl cutters use vehicle outlines for all the car models you could ever think of that come on CD-Roms. The CDs can be bought from Ebay etc, but probably wouldn't include bus outlines, and they are designed to be used with vector-based sotware (Corel Draw etc, or proprietory sign making packages) which is probably harder to learn than more familiar bit-map packages such as Photoshop. The specialist paint shops and graphic people who do a lot of bus and RV work will undoubtably use this approach, probably with outlines they have produced themselves, but I suspect you will be better off using the more straightforward Photoshop method with your existing outlines

Hope that helps

Jeremy

[chargePlus]

I'm looking for some kind of software, where I could take a picture of my bus. And try different colors and strips. I have one now that I tryed. You have to use a paint brush. But the body lines go a way. And all you have is a painted bus with no body lines. Any info will be good
Thanks
Bob

Take some pictures of your bus straight-on for all sides. Then using a drawing program like Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, or something similar, create a new document, then "import" or "place" the picture you took as a template. This will put the picture in it's own layer and lock the layer so you can't mess with it.

Here are two links for trial versions:

Adobe Illustrator CS2 (30 day trial):
http://www.adobe.com/downloads/#product=27

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X3(15 day trial):
http://tinyurl.com/kcv4k

It will take some time to get the drawing part down, but you should be able to do it. It's how I came up with paint schemes for my race car (a 1981 Mazda RX7). The car car is smaller than a bus, but the same concept.

- John

[gm4106]

Jeremy and Charge plus
Thanks, that what i'm looking for. The only problum is ,as always taken the time to find out how they work. But we will find a way .
Thanks again