Here is one idea for the paint design for our 1982 Thomas bus. The idea here was to keep the school bus windows in place and sheet over the windows we wouldn't use. That leaves the first four on the passenger side and the first five on the driver side open. The last window on each side is covered, the two forward of that on both sides are open for the bedroom and the rest are sheeted over.
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The idea was that the black band coupled with tinting the windows would make them a lot less obvious and not quite so school bus looking. I like the idea of keeping them because 1) they're already there, 2) I don't have to cut any of the bus' structure, and 3) they let in a lot of light. If I remove them and put in standard RV style windows we actually end up with less glass unless I cut more than one frame (which makes me a bit nervous). You may have to look closely but the windows are actually in the drawing below; they're true black while the "black" paint band is actually a charcoal grey.
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The Thomas has 3 chrome strips that run around the front of the bus. I've used their position to pick up the upper and lower limits of the silver side stripe. The silver would continue across the front of the bus between the chrome strips.
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The roof will remain white; we'll use Kool Seal on it as we did on our first bus.
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I can't get my CAD program to choose the color I'm really thinking of; this is just as close as it gets. I'm thinking more like a deep maroon color without quite so much red.
