Ive been asked how I got the metal look on my ki84.
Unweathered metal for my ki84. Its shadowed, highlighted and plane lined.
This is how it looks without weathering.
The first and most important thing to understand is that metal isnt one color. Metal is "alive" and color shifting. Look at the marked areas on how it shifts color.
Even when its not exposed to weather effects its gonna have color shifts in it. Even if you polish it up its gonna have color shifts in it.
Two live examples of how it looks.
Its not just about shadows and shadowing even though it plays a good part in it.
On a non shadowed surface you will still see color shifts. The marked area on the P-38 shows this well. By the square lines created by the plane lines there are shadows. But the area within the plane line square which is more or less flat you still have color shifts.
When working with metal skins its important to recreate these color shifts or it will look "dead".
A good example on how dead metal can look is the stock old P47. Ok this is 512 res but still you see my point.
An example on how shadows and weather effects as dirt and oil dont really help create the effect seen on the metal in the photos. Sorry Raptor I use your skin as an example but its a good one.
This as you see though is a very good step in the right direction. But still it lacks something and that is the shifts in the colors of the metal it self.
Ok so how do I go by creating it?
1. Create a simple base grey color layer. I usually create this one relativly dark grey.
2. Create a layer of air brushed lighter grey. Later I use this layer for overall color adjustment. I just go over all the body parts of the plane quickly. It shouldnt be 100% covered but most of the areas of each part should be covered. This helps create color shift but as said its mostly for adjustment of overall color.
3. Create a blue greyish layer. RGB 166 196 196. I use this to create a slight blueish tone to the metal it self. I later use the materials.txt to create the reflection slightly blueish as well.
4. Now time for step one of the effects. I create a "cloud effect" layer. This can be done in two ways. One is to just generate a full layer of white to black clouds. Second is to mark each body part and "cloud them" separatly. You really need to see what works best for the skin your doing.
The Ki84 is better off with a full cloud layer but I tried this on the P51B and there you really have to cloud each part separatly. When clouding parts separatly its extreamly important that the clouds dont differe too much or it will look very off. But sometimes you have to do this or it will look way off.
This layer I use darken blend on and about 60% opticity. You dont wana darken too much or it will look like shadows and you dont want that. You can also use lighten and luminosity blend with different opticity levels. Play with it what ends up looking best.
5. Now to the big secret part. Actually I dont know if Im allowed to tell this as I got it told to me by another skinner. Im not gonna tell the exact way to do it the way he told me as I dont wana tell tricks I learned from others.
Though I will tell you the principal and how to create a similar effect which looks good.
Create a new layer with white background.
You take a big brush at least 300 in size, use air brush. Attach a texture to it. Color black.
Go over the entire layer and dot it with sub 30% opticity and sub 40% flow.
When you have gone over it, rescale the texture, swich color to white. Go over it again with a bit less flow.
This should create a layer that looks something like this
Note just a demo layer so very sloppiely done. The marked area is how you want it to look all over.
Now blend it with soft light and about 50% opticity.
What this creates is structure to your metal. It will create color shifts from dark to less dark.
You can if you wana just go over each body part this way and do them individually. I just do all of it as it still looks good and is less work.
You can also swap the colors and do black bg and white on the big first run.
6. Now do play around with the opticity of layer 2 and layer 3. use Color blend and I would recommend relativly high opticity on layer 2 and relativly low on layer 3.
7. To get the final result you add weathering
Weathering does give it some aditional color shifts, like dirt from dust, sand, oil and other stuff.
Good luck.
Tex
