Joel sez (about painting my bus):

> how about like a greyhound bus?  an airliner of your favorite travel company?
> shamu the whale on the side?  a big desert tortoise on the side? native
> southwestern indian symbols on the side (it is a desert camper)?

In fact, I didn't write it down but another idea I've been kicking around
was to paint the sides with some of the Navajo rug designs.  The only problem
is that it might be a little too complex, too much masking, switching colors,
etc.  I might be able to simplify the design sufficiently to make it work
though.  (I also like the "flute player" motif.) 

Todd Schroeder wrote:

> Being from Tucson, you might appreciate this: My Bus is red with
> the white top, right?  I had a thought once of painting white
> grout lines on the sides to make it look like brick, and writing
> "BEAR DOWN" in big black block letters on the roof, but I thought
> better of it.

Interesting, but I'm not really much of a sports fan.  I support the Wildcats
but I think using their logo on my van would be a little much.  Some of the
local UofA people might pay me a good price for the van if I ever sell it
and if it were painted that way though :-) .

Avery commented:

> i have an orange 75 deluxe camper i plan on painting soon
> i haven't decided yet but i think i am going to go with yellow front end with
> flames into orange rear (top included)

Ya, I kinda like flames and even scallops but I think they look better on
a vehicle that has been slammed.  My bus isn't lowered at all, in fact I
am doing everything I can to make it *higher* off the ground.

Dan Geer:

> If I had my real druthers (i.e., if I
> didn't give a rat's ass whatsoever about
> how embarassed the kids would be), I'd
> have an artist friend paint it like the
> panel van the Mass Horticultural Society
> has -- rain forest canopy peppered with
> a riot of colored birds perched hither
> and yon.

A nice artist job like you mention would be excellent, I remember
seeing an article in Hot VWs a couple years ago about a company called
"Farm Fresh" that does VW restorations.  The article featured a panel van
with a beautiful wrap around mural I really liked.  Unfortunately, I'm not
much of an artist (at least with paint).
 

Eric Oster:

> I've decided to paint my bus Smurf blue, a pale smurf blue (almost white,
> like how they were originally painted.) and leave the bubble-top 
> pure white. "Mommy, mommy, there's a smurf driving down the road!" :)

I've always liked blue, its my favorite color, specially light blue!  But
the interior is orange, orange carpet, orange upholstery, etc., etc.  I think
orange, white, brown, maybe green, go with orange.  If I do red and/or blue
(maybe purple) I'll have to redo the inside...  That might be OK though...

Happy New Year to all and thanks for all the input on this so far!

 -Dyer

Dyer Lytle, National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Tucson, AZ, 602-323-4136
Internet: lytle@noao.edu   WWW: http://iraf.noao.edu/~lytle/lytle.html