I just desided to do a component, mainly because Im sick of re-inventing the wheel everytime I need a timeline. I started to "convert" my timeline from one of my projects to a component, but I suddenly hit the wall. I just need a coupple of hints. Im totally new to component dev, so the hints I need might be a bit silly.

1. I need to store a bitmap inside the component, like in a TImage.
I did a property using a TBitmap, but it doesn't seem to work.
Question is: how do you set default values on properties?
I've added the values in Create, but that doesn't change it in designtime.

2. The paint procedure in my component causes an access violation when the component is dropped to a form. Doesn't matter what I put in there. it's declared like this in the component:
protected
{ Protected declarations }
procedure Paint; override;

Also, how do you change the apparence of the component in design time?
Meaning, I would like the component to actually look like a timeline in both design and run time, instead of a gray area.

If someone could push me in the right direction, I would be most gratefull