P-51D Metal preview (Very early WIP)

[Knite]

Well I've been trying to use what I learned on the P-38s for my P-51 works, but the guys who've made the stock skins raised the bar so high, it's made my "perfectionist" complex go through the roof and caused me delay after delay of stupid adjustments and attempts.

All that said, I've almost started from scracth again with metal aircraft, and am trying something new for myself (but still definitely has my own style. lol.)
Here's a very early P-51D metal Mustang. This will basically be my template for all of my P-51Ds (and with some adjustments P-51Bs), metal or not. Please let me know what you think. The Materials.txt file was altered to remove some of the glare to make it easier to see the details.

Closeup of the nose, Large and small rivets


Closeup of the tail showing trim control details and such


Extreme closeup of the wing showing rivet details and panel lines.


The whole package so far


Advice is always welcome and highly sougt after. I want to make aircraft you all would choose to fly =)

[SkyChimp]

mmmmmmmmmmmm best i've seen yet !

[TexMurphy]

Knite, that is freekin amazing!!

One thing though the elevators look very "plain" compared to the rest of the plane. Intended or just not done?

Tex

[Knite]

Thanks Chimp and Tex. =)

Now Tex, the post title DOES say "very early WIP (work in progress)" hehehe.

The elevators just aren't done yet.

I need to finish the anti-glare panel, the underside of the fuselage, the elevators, and rivets for the underside of the wings (underside panel lines done). After all that, then I will work on double checking all of the "little details" and alignment (the upper wings and fuselage/tail are already aligned actually). After all that, THEN I can actually start making an aircraft. lol.

[TexMurphy]

Your not good for my spare time... not good at all... now your inspring me to redo all my planelines... evil Knite.. evil!!

Tex

[Citabria]

hate to tell you this because it shocked me too when they told me...

p51D wings are all silver painted except for the flap and aileron.

[Citabria]

maybe aply that great texturing to rest of plane even though it wont show that way on wings?

tell me what was your technique for texturing the aluminum vertical lines layer motions blurred?

btw the wings are very very good though ultimately incorrect.

[Knite]

Really Fester? (Do you prefer Fester or Citabria? hehe).

It seems that's definitely something they do differently when "restoring" them then, because most of my restored pictures show either full metal, or fully painted, never really a combination... Or was this done per squadron?

Actually, the silver paint on the wings shouldn't be too difficult. Generally I try to make the plane in "all metal" first, and then paint over the metal. That way when I go to do paint chipping, the original metal layer is below it, and hopefully makes it look more "chipped" as opposed to just smudges of grey. Haven't messed with it much yet though.

As far as the Aluminum vertical lines... what are you referring to there? I'd be more than happy to try to explain what I've done.

[Citabria]

yeah the subtle lines inside the panels on the wing (not the rivets but the actual metal texture)

for the metal streaking texture did you use various colors to get that effect and streak it across the panel?


they painted the leading edge panels (from leading edge to the spar outboard of the engine)of natural metal P38J/L wings also i am not sure the reason why but they were all that way on 38s

and acording to the mustang experts here everything on the wing except the aileron and flap were painted silver.

I believe the wing root panels that tied into the fuselage were also natural metal and the gear doors may have been natural metal too but not sure either way on that underside part.

I work at the airport and see lots of shiny aircraft metal and some dull stuff too.

the wings on that 51 look a lot like the dull stuff that has bean heavily weathered and has aluminum oxide streaks.

[Knite]

I'm not 100% sure what you're asking about, but I think I know now... hahah
The very light thin streakings of light and dark that are going from leading to trailing edge on the aircraft? (I have them on the fuselage too but the darkness of the lighting makes it tougher to see).

There are two ways of doing them, with slightly different results.

I'm using PS 7 so these instructions are specifically for that.

One way of doing it, is to pick up an add-on to PS called Eye Candy 4000. Inside there is a thing called HSB Noise. I create a new layer above the metal panel, and paint it the same as your metal color, load up the HSB Noise add-in, and set settings to
Hue: 25
Sat: 30
Bright: 30
Opacity: 100
Width: .25
height: .01
Smooth lumps and Seamless tile
If you want different effects, you can change any settings.
Then set the layer to Linear Light at 4-6% and you're good to go.


The cheaper (albeit far more difficult) way can be done directly in PS with no fancy addons or anything.
Make a new layer above your metal. Pick black as your paint color, and the paintbrush tool.
In the brushes window go to -

     BRUSH TIP SHAPE
Diameter: 18
Angle: 0
Roundness: 15
Hardness: 0
Spacing: 300%

     SCATTERING
Scatter: 100% DO NOT put a check on "both axes"
Count: 1
Count Jitter: 0%

     COLOR DYNAMICS
Foreground/Backgroud: 0%
Hue: 0%
Saturation: 0%
Brightness: 100%
Purity: 0%

     OTHER DYNAMICS
Opacity: 50%
Flow: 50%

Turn on Smoothing and Airbrush.
Once all that's done, pick the area you want to put the texture on , hold down the mouse button and go crazy =). BE FOREWARNED, this only works left to right and right to left (unless you change the angle listed above), so if you want up/down, you need to rotate after you are done.
Once you get it as thick or thin as you want, change the opacity to Linear Light 4-6%.

Both look very close, and at such low opacities, no one will even know the difference ;-)

Let me know if you try it out and have any trouble =)

[Knite]

Is this what you mean with the metal/silver? It's a very quick mock-up, but should give the right idea.