Interesting color designs for seven-cells?

[ScratchTX 0]

I've been playing with the computer canopy-coloring program ad nauseum, cutting up color swatches from PD and laying them out on white paper... I've hardly ever had the chance to buy something like this NEW before... all my "big stuff" (rig, canopy, cars, etc.) has always been used and color was unimportant. Now I'm buying a new Spectre and driving myself and my gf crazy with the endless "what about jade and blackberry, with an off-center stripe of... white? yellow? black? Or, wow, look at this magenta and black... no wait, green and blue look cool, but that's asking for a canopy collision or lost cut-away..."

Any suggestions? I lean toward non-symmetrical, unusual/unique is good... even weird... but it's had to do that with just seven cells to work with...Plese post pics, designs, descriptions etc. of cool/weird unusual 7-cells! I promise to try to NOT just steal your colors, but rather, get inspired by them.

--Scratch

[tbrown 26]

How about top & bottom skins one really bright color and then all the ribs another, like a hot neon green top & bottom, with turqoise or hot pink ribs ? Or you can use any number of different colors like that. I was also thinking of an all white canopy, with 3 cells off center having colors, like red/yellow/neon green, or stuff like that, just to make it look like a "splash". I'm looking at Spectres too, so these are 7 cell designs. I used an online canopy designer to do it.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[CloudOnMyTongue 0]

Don't stress about it.

Just start by picking a couple of colours you really like. orget about the other colours that sound good on a whim or look nice in the design programs you use. If you pick colours you already like then chances are you won't get sick of it.

Then take the cut outs of your favourites and post them up in places where you'll see them.

Eventually the right canopy will just come to you.

[darkvapor 0]

Hehe, I was just in the same predicament last week when designing my PD Lightning. Here are some of my designs.

http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gtg096b/lightning/

[skycat 0]

Ok I spent weeks picking out colors and trying to come up with the perfect pattern.....Then I went over to a party at the gear dealers house, and drunk as a skunk picked my colors and ordered my canopy.....the design and the colors weren't even close to the original ones I came up and I loved it so much my 2nd canopy was ordered with the exact same design.

Fly it like you stole it!

[floormonkey 0]

Avoid a white center cell- they get a brown color with repeated packing.

[wmw999 2,166]

I owe you a note...

That said, I tried being cute, and ordering a white topskin for half, and white bottom skin for the other half, with colors on the non-white part. That canopy's F111, and you can't really tell the two sides apart from below with the sun showing through. So I don't recommend that.

But white top and bottom skin with colored ribs can look cool.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[moodyskydiver 0]

Quote

But white top and bottom skin with colored ribs can look cool.

Yeah, there was a guy at SkyFest this weekend w/a cool canopy (cant think of his name right now). His main had white top and bottom skins and all the ribs were rainbow patterned.When looking at this canopy in flight from the ground with the sun shining through it looked like stained glass...very pretty.

"...just an earthbound misfit, I."

[deadbrowncow 0]

I went through the same BS when I bought my new Spectre and eventually said to hellwith it and got one off the shelf. No waiting times, I had it in something like two days and I love it. It may sound weird, but a buddy of mine has an all blackberry canopy with one offset lime green and it looks awesome. A word of advice, dont get white! It gets too dirty and eventually looks like crap. You can never go wrong with the neon colors, they look awesome in the sky!!

***"A smart person can act dumb, but a dumb person can't act smart"***

[faulknerwn 37]

Don't forget to make it symmetric so that your end cells and center cells stand out for CRW :-)
W

[Kris 0]

Quote

Quote

But white top and bottom skin with colored ribs can look cool.

Yeah, there was a guy at SkyFest this weekend w/a cool canopy (cant think of his name right now). His main had white top and bottom skins and all the ribs were rainbow patterned.When looking at this canopy in flight from the ground with the sun shining through it looked like stained glass...very pretty.

That would be Mat Herzog's Stiletto 135. It is an amazing looking canopy when the light hits it just right.

Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and
Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

[ScratchTX 0]

Quote

Don't forget to make it symmetric so that your end cells and center cells stand out for CRW :-)
W

Hey, yours isn't symmetrical and there's a picture on the cover of Parachutist to prove it! Oh, I get it -- so THAT'S why you usually fly a wing slot... :>)

Thanks everyone for some good ideas, tips and designs. Avoiding white in general but especially on the center cell is a good idea... my old canopy came back with a factory patch on the center cell. When I first looked at it, I thought "Why didn't they use the same color?! My canopy's center cell is cream-colored!" before I realized there IS no "cream color," there is only PINK which I suppose the center cell was, once... Now it looks like a hobo's canopy with a brilliant pink patch on a brownish-stained faded caucasian-colored center cell...

And my canopy does occasionally touch the ground, sometimes not in the peas or the surrounding grass or even the surrounding fields...

--Scratch