Bf 109G-2 Gunther Rall 8./Jg52

[Devil 505]

In progress pics of my first skin. Just the color scheme and panel lines at this point.










Comments and criticism welcome.

[SmokinLoon]

I'm currently struggling with the simplicity of the M3, so I think this is shaping up nicely.   

[Raphael]

  Looking good already! keep the WIP photos coming! 

[FTJR]

Good Start, but you see those saw tooth edges on your wing camo? You need to blur those to get rid of the teeth. But you knew that already right :0

[Volron]

Good Start, but you see those saw tooth edges on your wing camo? You need to blur those to get rid of the teeth. But you knew that already right :0

The 1st thing to jump out at me were the lines.  But it's still a work in progress.


I like it.   Going nicely so far.

[Devil 505]

Thanks for the comments.

Regarding the wing cammo, this aircraft is believed to have been built in the Erla plant. Erla built 109s had a sawtooth demarcation on the wings.





Unfortunately, there are only a few pictures of the real aircraft.  Worse is that they show a few areas and not the whole aircraft, leaving much to the imagination.

[The Fugitive]

You have too many "bulges" in the camo edge. In the picture where you can see the right wing (3rd and 4th photos) there is only 7 bulges. On your skin it has like 15-18 for the same area. Thats why it looks more like it's "pixalated" than a scalloped edge.

[Devil 505]

yeah, i'm reworking the cammo now. its a pain.

[FTJR]

Wow, Ok Devil,  well done.

[ink]

I want to comment but its too early yet,so I will just say........ keep at it

[Krusty]

The entire tail being painted over is most likely not correct. If anything, the fuselage sides would be over-sprayed so that new markings could be applied, or in some cases the default camo was too "light" and it needed to be dulled down for ground cover.

Such overspray ends at the stabilizers in almost every case I've seen, since you cannot see beneath the stabilizers and they then act as the camouflage from above. the left/right of the fin is also left outouched in almost all cases. It's also hard to get under there to apply paint.

If you don't have a solid example to show that the tail should be marked that way, I might suggest toning it back significantly. Use more standard norms and conventions for Luftwaffe fuselage mottling. I know this wasn't really set in stone, but there are certain things to note (going off the top of my head here, and not specific to this plane) such as often the "spine" of the fuselage was left intact and the original camo was in place, but the sides and overlapping areas were painted over.

On a related note, there's an interesting discussion here:

http://ehangar.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2656

Note how he did Rall's plane in pencil? I'm not sure how much it says about the authenticity of it, but Gunther Rall himself signed the art. The artist here takes a more conventional approach to the camo.

On this photo:


You can see the dark camo (distinct from just "shadow" areas) but it doesn't wrap up and over the top, but rather curves horizontally just past the octane marking by the gas cap. Generally it was more effort to reach up and paint down. Most times it was applied by a man standing there reaching sideways, and so ergonomically you can see why they'd leave the upper surfaces most times.

On the non-oversprayed camo, you probably know this already  but I'll point out that there ought to be some camo demarcation on the uppder forward cowling. Often 2/3 back from prop to canopy it changes. The upper surfaces should still follow the splinter camo pattern, even if it's modified with sawtooths. I think your "green" may be a tad dark but it's hard to tell from screenshots and it's early progress yet so I won't get into that just yet. Which colors were you using on the upper surfaces? Is that supposed to be RLM02 or dark green?

Hope this helps. It's always interesting to see some new 109s!

[Devil 505]

Krusty,  thanks for your input on the subject. You make many valid points on the way 109s were usually painted. I will be changing the paint on the vert stab to a mottled pattern, both because of your argument, and that I find what I have so far a little bland. With the rear fuselage, that will not likely be changed. Part of what I like about this scheme is just how differant from the usual 109 schemes.

In terms of the colors used, I started with color swatches for RLM 74/75/76 from Simmers Paint Shop. http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/page-RGB-colors-Germany.html
I wanted to have the rear fuselage to be more green, so I replaced RLM 74 with 73. Probably not accurate but I like the shade. In reality, I'm guessing that RLM 70 was mixed into 74 to darken it an add a greenish tint. For RLM 75 on the nose and forward fuselage, I simply darkened the shade, finding the swatch given too light for my taste. The swatches for RLM 76 were not changed, and the given variations will be used to break up the underside color.

On the subject of the pencil drawings, they pretty much prove my point for more artistic license with this scheme. This artist doesn't even draw the same plane the same way twice. Couple this with the fact that there are so many variations of this scheme out there. It reminds me of the thread about your F-4 that you did for Marseille, only that you have more real pictures. What I have to go on are many contradicing profiles and a couple of snapshots.

 

[Devil 505]

Here are some of the profiles that I've found of this scheme.







some other atrwork.

[ink]

here is a way to give your paint a more natural look...

make sure your paint layer is selected....in the layer stack right click your paint layer and create a NEW layer..a window opens make sure "transparent" is selected.(you should name your layers to stop confusion later on)
name the new layer something like "paint_fading_1"

select your paint layer..... using the selection tool select all the base color paint....

 (a tip...when you use the selection tool if you hold left click and drag you can change the amount of selection)

select your new layer that you just made...(the selection you made works on any layer that is selected)

go to "Filters" (hint-you can just right click the large window to get to all the options on top of window.... where Filters is) then go to
"Render" go to "clouds" go to "plasma"  a window opens......... the more "turbulence you pick the more Mottled it will look....so this layer choose a small amount of "turbulence" click "OK"

a rainbow of colors appear....go to "Colors" then "desaturate"  not really important what you choose here..."lightness-Luminosity-Average"click them all..... choose one that you like...click OK

now on the right side where the layer stack is there is a drop down arrow called "Mode" go through each one to see what it does to change the paint underneath

for this I personally like "hard light" and then bring down the opacity to around 40 %

again just the steps are whats important...experimenting is where you find some great effects.....

do this again with a new layer but this time use a lot of turbulence when making the Plasma clouds...

things to remember

the proper layer is selected

if you are trying to do something but its not working a good chance is you selected something and never deselected...once you select an area whatever you do will ONLY effect the selected area.

Control Z is UNDO very IMPORTANT    in preferences you can change the amount of "UNDO's" allowed the more the better.


hope this helps a bit

[Devil 505]

Thanks INK, I'l be sure to give that a try. I've been thinking about ways to add some depth and variation to the paint.