Troble with making a skin.

[StokesAk]

Well i decided to mess around with my GIMP and try to make a skin for a 262. I have some problems.
#1: When i go to edit the default i don't know how to add wear and tear to the skin.
#2: They look good from afar but up close there is a clear transition from black to white.
#3: To make a god transition do you have to use several shades of 1 color to provide a good fade into the mext color?

Here are some pics.

[Motherland]

Use the paint brush instead of the pencil. Preferably one of the fuzzy brushes. Make sure it's set to RGB under Image>Mode.

[StokesAk]

Thanks that made the difference in the world.

[MjTalon]

What in gods name is that on the wings... 

[StokesAk]

Hey i didn't say it looked good.
Also how do i put on riviets and wear and tear on the plane?

[choppit]

Rivets are just like the panel lines, just make a new layer for the Horizontal and Vertical rivets and copy them down from the default skin using a brush(set the spacing to 300-400% IIRC, and it'll take no time at all). You can use white or black. Wear an tear is harder as you have many aspects to it, dirt and scratches for example.  Take a look at some of the simmer's paintshop tutorials, but don't just look at the gimp tutorials, they're a couple good ones in the photoshop section.

This is a decent tutorial for some ideas:
http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/forums/photoshop-tutorials/478-step-step-weathering.html

[Motherland]

Hey i didn't say it looked good.
Also how do i put on riviets and wear and tear on the plane?

For rivets you'll want to make a brush that's one pixel with a space of like 3-5 px in between each replication (I guess is what they call it?) when you shift+click. You can find the tutorial for making brushes on GIMP.org, they're great tutorials.

As far as weathering... come up with something. That's the fun Everybody has their own techniques for this kind of thing, and they usually vary by plane.

My biggest suggestion on the latter issue is to study pictures. I think I looked at pictures/ read for about a month before I started my Dora template, which I'm currently working on. Even now I've still only done MOST of the shadowing/panel differences (I have 6 different panel opacities in this template).

[The Fugitive]

Also be sure you are using layers. If you paint everything on one layer, first it won't look too good and second you won't be able to adjust things. Some of the skins these guys make have upwards of 60 layers 

[StokesAk]

Ok, i messed around with it, i got the main colors down but i still need help with the layers, the guide didn't help much. How do i use the layers?

[choppit]

Layer->New Layer

To see a list of them go to

Windows->Dockable Docks->Layers

[StokesAk]

Thank You.

[Motherland]

Also be sure you are using layers. If you paint everything on one layer, first it won't look too good and second you won't be able to adjust things. Some of the skins these guys make have upwards of 60 layers 

I use 130+ on my 109's
They're overly bloated though. Tons of layers that should be merged, I'm just too lazy to.

^59 layers. No weather, pre-issue paint job. (no tactical markings etc.) which make up a lot of layers. Most of them, even.

GIMP setup



BTW if you're doing Luftwaffe skins here's a color palette.

[Larry]

Also be sure you are using layers. If you paint everything on one layer, first it won't look too good and second you won't be able to adjust things. Some of the skins these guys make have upwards of 60 layers 

On some of my skins I have 40-50 layers in just my weathering layer set.


[Edit] In my newest skin (the 4FS/54FG Spitfire IX) I have a total of 149 layers in 8 layer sets. And that's with everything cleaned up. That's a normal number for most of my latest skins with a file size around 35-45MB for each skin file.

[Serenity]

Wow, I feel so... pathetic. I only use about 70 layers total.

[StokesAk]

pfft the most i have done is 2.