The Real Paint job commenced today!

[wagwar]

Well, the Big Ugly Brown Bus is gone. I painted the whole thing white!  Now the REAL paint job begins.  Check it out on our blog with links to Flickr and Facebook.

Jim

www.mightybus.wordpress.com

[Kwajdiver]

White is good.  I went from an ugly blue to Corvette White.
Are you going to add graphics?

Bill

[John316]

I am impressed.....

[PCC]

Looks like a bendy bus.

Nice artwork!!

[PP]

That must be one of them articulating buses

[Jeremy]

Interesting...a bus probably is big enough for painting murals or graphics with an spray can to be alternative to using an airbrush. And - although I don't quite know how you'd find them - there are without doubt some very skilled graffiti artists out there who you could employ to do the job. Presumably you could finish the job off properly by applying a clear coat on top of the aerosol paint.


As it happens I was reading a military aviation magazine article a few minutes ago about the 'Tiger Meets' - some of the paint schemes on those aircraft would lend themselves to a 'graffiti' approach - not necessarily how I'd want my own bus to look, but they might appeal to some:






Jeremy

[fortyniner]

Wow, nice. Did you primer/paint in the driveway?

-Tom P.

[luvrbus]

It does look better the 1st time I saw the bus at B&B I told Gary that had to be the ugliest bus on the planet he agreed lol

good luck

[wagwar]

I prepped the entire surface with a DA sander, primed it and then rolled on Hy-Tech Insulating paint. The roof is now complete with a clear coat. The sides will all get a clear coat after the painting is done.

Kansas City has a burgeoning art community in the Crossroads District of downtown. On the first Friday of each month all of the galleries open late and have special showings and 'paint offs'. We found our artist by going to a few first Fridays and letting it be known in the community that we were looking for an artist. These are not 'taggers'. They only do commissioned art on sanctioned spaces.

There is a big renaissance of wall murals and painting on the sides of buildings and other public spaces. Some businesses are renewing the old whiskey bottles and ad-art that used to be common on the sides of buildings - back in the day...

[luvrbus]

Yep but not all people see art work through the same glasses after looking at art in the Scottsdale Galleries for a couple of weekends with my wife some tagging looks good to me lol 

[sdc53]

From your pics, it looks like the artist just used rattle-cans? I'm pretty sure I could get that done around here, too.  What I'm curious about was your surface prep and roll-on job.  How'd you do that, and is your base white coat nice and even?  How did you do your clear coat?


Scott
'69 4107
Gladstone, OR

[wagwar]

 The driver side is finished, complete - clear coat is next. Check it out!

I used the same HyTec Insulating paint called Bus Kote that I used on the roof. It is an elastomeric paint with insulating particles. It looked good on the roof, so I just used on the side too. It is a bright white with a flat finish. I used a Zinser 123 Bullseye primer and both primer and Bus Kote were appled with a short nap 1/4 "roller and a good cut-in brush. I used the roller to texture the brushed areas. The roller creates a slightly rough or textured finish, so it is not a smooth flat finish as you would see from a spray job. However, I was OK with that look - it gives the bus a sort "suede" look.

The clear coat will also be brushed and rolled to give the final glossy finish.

This paint can be sprayed and you would get a smoother look, but I don't have the facilities or the skills. I did the entire job outside on the driveway.

The Koi is a rattle-can job as you guessed and it took the artist Stormy 2 days to complete.