Can't wait to see it in game, nopoop! Looks like its coming together well.
I learned one trick with Photoshop recently for bare metal.
First, make sure you have panels that aren't all the same shade of aluminum - there should be natural differences between access covers, patched sections, etc. The create a new layer for variation. I take a big airbrush and make giant splotches of black and white liberally on the metal surface. Then I add some deep sky blue splotches as well. Then go to Filters and select Blur, Gaussian Blur, and crank up the radius to 40 or 50 - play with it a bit. You might want to adjust the opacity of the layer too. You wind up with nice, indiscernable variations that take on a bluish caste in certain reflected light. You have to experiment a bit but sometimes it comes out amazingly lifelike.
Your black stripe on the stabilizer looks either to thin or too for outboard - can't tell which.
I really love that scheme - thanks for doing it!
