SD67 said:think I'm doing Ok so far for my first skin attempt.
Damn good work for anybody, let along a 1st attempt. Very good attention to detail. My only criticism would be that you need to change the color of some of the panel lines. This is because on real planes, they don't all look the same. It's like this..
First off, the big question is whether you're going to put the panel lines above or below the paint layer. I personally put them below, then make the paint layer about 85% opacity so the lines show through, and this also thins the color a bit which, IMHO, makes it look a bit more realistic on the finished product. Just like on a plastic kit. So I use darker colors for my lines than those who put the lines on top of the paint. But either way you do it, you still need to change some of the colors.
Anyway, the gray you're using is pretty good for joints between fixed, flush skin panels. At such joints, there's about a 1/8" gap between the edges of adjacent panels, but this gap is almost always filled with putty to reduce drag and keep out water. When the plane gets painted, the result is just a ripple in the surface, making these joints almost invisible from the distances you'd see the plane in the game. OTOH, the Russians often omitted the putty in the interests of speedy production, in which case these lines would be much more obvious.
For the edges of raised panels, such as doublers, fillets, and some inspection plates, use a darker gray to make these lines much more obvious. Putting a 3D effect on these lines is, IMHO, overkill, because it either makes the line look incised into the surface or makes the panel appear too thick.
For lines representing moveable panels, such as cowlings, gun bays, fuel fillers, etc., you pretty much need to use black. This is because there's usually a real gap around these edges, or continuous use has bent them slightly so they don't fit perfectly anymore. Then, if you put these lines under the paint, you need to erase the paint over them. If that makes the line look too obvious or wide, go back over it with a very light coat of paint, like 25% opacity at 50% coverage, so you end up with a dotted line of various shades, but still very dark. On the finished product, this gives you a thin, dark line.
As I said, I put my lines below the paint, so I typically use 0,0,0 for the moveable lines, 80,80,80 for the raised edges, and 120,120,120 for the fixed panels. I also use 150,150,150 for my flush rivets and 80,80,80 for domeheads and dzus fasteners. Even if you put your stuff on top, you can use darker colors and just turn down their opacity until they look right on top of your paint. You can dim dark lines as much as you want, but you can't make light lines darker without redoing them.
Otherwise, I just have some advice. I can't tell how many layers you're showing in your pic there, but if you've got all that on just 1 layer, I STRONGLY recommend you separate it out so that the stuff for each part of the plane is on its own layer. Not just that, but put the rivets for each part on a different layer than the panel lines for that part. Do the same when you apply the paint. You'll end up with 40-50 layers by the time you're finished with the skin, but it's definitely worth all that so you can tweak each aspect of each part of the plane individually. This is especially useful if you put the lines under the paint, because they show up differently through different paint colors. It also makes it easier to clean up your overspray on the paint layers, so you don't have to redo lower surfaces when you get upper surface paint on them.
I look forward to seeing the finished product. Keep up the good work.
