Red Wrath

[Bullethead]

Well, I've gotten off to a good start on the 498th BS's "Red Wrath".  Maybe 40% done but I had to show off the nose.  See attached.

This was a challenge getting things to line up due to how the textures fit together and stretch over the curves.  The other side has a different arrangement of the words and trim stripes, plus a picture.

[CAF51]

Is it just me or does the pilot have a handlebar mustache?

Oh and great start:aok

[Spikes]

Originally posted by CAF51
Is it just me or does the pilot have a handlebar mustache?

Oh and great start:aok

Yes, he does.

Nice start!

[Bullethead]

CAF51 said:

Is it just me or does the pilot have a handlebar mustache?

Yup, he does.  That's a photo of me pasted onto the DUDE texture.  It's how I put my signature on all my skins, instead of actually writing it in an inconspicuous place in the cockpit or whatever .

This might scare the children, but here's the texture I use:

[GunnerCAF]

Originally posted by Bullethead
CAF51 said:

This might scare the children, but here's the texture I use:

It scared me, and I ain't afraid of nothing

Hi BH.  Glad to see your still kicking.  I noticed a bunch of your new skins.  the look good!

Gunner

[Bullethead]

GunnerCAF said:

Hi BH.  Glad to see your still kicking.  I noticed a bunch of your new skins.  the look good!

Same to you, bro!  Give my regards to all and sundry.

But this is the 1st skin I've made in well over a year.  If you've seen any new ones from me, they're actually old ones and it's taken this long for them to get through the system.  Either that, or there's an imposter on the loose.  But why somebody would want to impersonate me is a puzzle.  Oh well, if he wants my outstanding warrants and past-due alimony, he's welcome to them .

[VonMessa]

Love the moustache!:aok

Was wondering when someone was gonna do this skin!  Tried to fool with it myself, but I am not a visual artist.  I'ss stick to the music LOL

[GunnerCAF]

Not long ago, it sure looked like a lot of BH skins.  Well, then the old ones look good  

If you get up flying sometime, let me know.  It's fun flying with a good wingman.

Gunner

[Bullethead]

Well, things are moving along, but there's still a long way to go.  I've reached a point where I'd like some comments from the peanut gallery on how to proceed.  Maybe some of you all have found solutions to these problems already.

In the pic below, my problem is making the plexiglass look like it's bulged out from the heat of the guns.  I've tried several approaches but most of them make the surface look concave instead of convex.  Part of the problem is that the model itself is concave between the canopy frames.

The pic below shows my best results so far, but I'm still not happy with it.  What I'm attempting to do is make the canopy frames dark and the paint on the glass lighter than the same paint on the surrounding metal, plus giving it some 3D shading.  That's the only strategy I've tried that at least makes the glass look at least flat instead of concave.  Anybody got some suggestions here?

Thanks.

[Bullethead]

My other questions concerns the basic paintjob...

The basic problem is that my photos of this particular plane either focus on the crew standing under the nose art, or are of too indifferent a quality to show the details of the paintjob.  So here's what I did.  If anybody has better info, I'd appreciate it.

Anyway, as you can see, I've considerably lightened up the basic OD paint compared to the original pic.  I did this because contemporary color photos of 345th planes show it more this color.  I figure this was from fading.  "Red Wrath" survived 60-70 missions so I figure she got faded at some point.

The other thing is that I put the blotched camo around the edges.  I can't tell from "Red Wrath" photos if this was on the plane, but you can see it on most other planes in the 345th at that time, and with the same range of serial numbers.  Thus, I figure it's appropriate for this plane.  My best evidence for this is a photo that shows the vertical tail, which appears to show some of the blotches faintly visible through the white overspray.

Also note the lack of surrounds on the insignia bars and even the circles.  This much at least seems evident enough from the photos.

[Guppy35]

There generally was no surround to the white bar until later.  When the red surround was added to the star and bar in the ETO and MTO the PTO didn't do it cause of the obvious concerns about red.

Seems like Hickey's book has some color shots of that bird doesn't it?

At work so I can't check

[Bullethead]

Guppy35 said:

Seems like Hickey's book has some color shots of that bird doesn't it?

Nope .  There are 4 B&W photos and the color profile.  All are of limited utility.

• The photo on page 43 shows the whole side of the plane, but has bad lighting so you can't tell much about the shade of OD or the presence or absence of blotching on it.  It does, however, seem to show blotching under the white on the rudder.  It also shows how the SN was done, half yellow on OD, half black on white, which I've copied.
• The photo on page 64 is a strike photo that happens to have the plane in it.  However, that's just incidental and the distance and angle make this photo useless for a reference.
• The photo on page 142 is really of the crew posing by the nose.  It's only good for the scoreboard.  But it's late in the plane's life (52 missions, Feb 1944), and you can see the prop hubs now have yellow all the way back instead of just at the tips.  I'm making the skin for the Cartwheel period in the fall of 1943, so this picture is pretty much useless.
• The photo on page 418 is another crew pic, and dates from March 1944.  68 missions and a completely redone nose paintjob:  different falcon eye, rearranged name text.  It does, however, show the nosewheel hubcap as painted, which is KINDA visible in the 3rd photo, and was probably also the case in the fall of 1943.
• The profile is for Feb 1944 so is based on the 3rd photo.  But it doesn't have the split colors on the SN shown in the earlier 2 photos.  An interesting thing is that it shows different amounts of yellow on the different prop hubs.  But I can't find any photos that show both hubs at once, so I can't say whether that's accurate.  In any case, the profile shows no evidence of blotching, not even on the rudder, although most of the other profiles for the same time period do.

So what I'm doing is using the profile for the nose art, which seems to match the earlier photos.  I guess I'll put 30-odd missions on the scoreboard.  And I've gone with blotching because that seems the most likely thing.  But it's just a SWAG, really.