Wish AH would contact this skinner

[Piranha]

http://mwmiller.theaerodrome.com/

Some of the best digitally rendered WW1 planes I have ever seen.  And he builds them up totally from scratch, piece by piece.  I realize that sort of detail is not necessary for the game but I'm sure he could adjust to the requirements.

Piranha
The PigStompers Squadron
http://pigstompers.net

[Knite]

His work is very nice, but I believe his price would be far higher than "free".

Also, when skinning a render like that, you are not as limited in the resolution of your skin, NOR are you limited in the number of polygons that you are in Aces High, allowing for a much higher amount of graphical fidelity (i.e. the little details). I'd be willing to bet after the weeks/months it takes to create one of those 3d models, it takes another couple of days to "render" one individual picture, where in AH, you're rendering a picture at 60 times every second!

I'm sure he'd do a great job skinning for Aces High, but at the same time, I'm not so sure his skins would look night and day different compared to our best skinners due to the limitations placed on him due to the requirements of the game to run and the game engine itself.

[Krusty]

3D artwork is a different ball park. You give a shape a texture, you make it transparent, translucent, glowering, you light the heck out of it, you create shadows and all that, but most of it is the interactions of 3d tools and constructs.

In skinning planes (like in AH) you're very much working in a set 2D environment. You want a transparent, translucent, or shadow-related look and you have to draw upon your own skills to figure out how to "paint" that effect into place, rather than constructing it piece by piece, and you have to make it look good in limited resolutions.

I'm not saying one is better or harder than the other, it's just that they are night and day in regards to practical application. Somebody might be great at one and not at the other. For example, I myself have take a number of 3D animation classes (up to the most advanced ones my college offered) and still have issues with applying textures and getting things to look right on a surface as compared to doing the same thing on a bitmap.