P40E Aleutian Tiger

[ClaymoreMuskies]

I was asked to start a new topic on this new skin.. here goes

Skin is 1024x1024, would like to know if AH2 can also take 2048x2048

thanks all - Enjoy!

--)-Claymore--

Info:

P40E Aleutian tiger, Flown by Mozart Kaufman who was a speaker at the 1997 AWCON and a friend.
 Mozart wrote the book Fighter Pilot and was an early flyer in WW2. He started in the P39 then flew P40's in
 the Aleutian islands till he transitioned to Worchester, Ma to learn the P47 in prep for DDAY. He flew on DDAY
 and was shot down on a low level strafe run by a machine gun nest on a hill. He belly'ed in and was taken prisoner.
 Mozart was Jewish and the Germans while transporting him to Stalag Luft 1 stopped the train of prisoners and unloaded
everyone because of a straffing attempt on the train. Everyone but Mozart who they placed at the front of the engine to wave
away the fighters. He spent one year in internment at Stalag Luft 1 and was later released in an allstar collection of
ace pilots at the camp including Zemke and Gabreski.

Mozart was most proud of the fact he was the one that discovered the P39's reason for crashing in that no-one informed the pilots to
chop the throttle in a spin. Six men died before he took his airplane up 10k higher than others to risk death over San Francisco bay
by purposly beginning a violent spin. He narrowly escaped as his plane dove into the bay. A plaque was added to the P39 to inform
pilots what to do in the advent of a violent spin.

If you have any URL's which point to the history of the skin, or where you did your research, then include it. All the information about how you obtained the skin reference is helpful in expediting the process.
Fighter Pilot - Aleutians to Normandy to Stalag Luft 1 : ISBN 0-9636301-0-5 M & A Kaufman Publishers, San Anselmo, Ca  circa.1993

[ink]

you should take some close up shots while in skin viewer and just one pic ingame.....just my opinion....

its hard to see real good....so its hard for me to give an opinion on the skin.

[ClaymoreMuskies]

here you go

[ink]

couple things I would work on

the weathering on the panel lines seems to bold...also with the amount of it on the panel lines, but none really elsewhere makes it even more so "obviously" done...looks unnatural.

the exhaust should start and form around the exhaust pipes and have more of a smudged out look.

with that much weathering there would be sun fade to the paint.

wondering where this plane rolled from...if it was real sandy, or volcanic rock.... there would be far more paint "sand blasted" off the front...and underside...but I cant see the underside to say anyway



not bad at all...just a bit more work and it will be real nice

[Dragon Tamer]

I'm with ink, it's a good first skin but it could use a little work. Mine does so don't let it get you down, it's a learning process.

If you were smart (don't be stupid like me  ) you will have the panel lines, rivets, color, art, weathering, bump map and specular map in a separate layer. This makes it easy to tweak large areas without affecting others. I am dumb because I allowed the panel lines and the rivets to be in the same layer (same for the panel highlights and rivet shadows, they share their own layer as well).

Speaking of rivets, I'm noticing a distinct lack of them. Did you not add any to the skin? While it is a tedious task trying to make sure all of the rivets are accounted for, it helps add a nice layer of depth to the skin when it is done right.

Make all the panel lines in the layer a grey scale color of about 40-45 and play around with some blending methods.

Once you have the panel lines issue fixed, then you can add some chipped paint to the texture. I usually prefer to start at the joint of 3 panels or more for chipping pain, since this is where it is most likely to start. You can modify the base layer (the olive drab layer with the logos) but I would not recommend this, instead make a separate layer and use the starting grey scale color (grey scale 50, 60 or whatever you chose to use). Mark the outline of the panel lines, just a bit, then use your smudge tool to smear it to alpha channel 0.

By the way, I haven't tried that technique yet but I have plans to do it for my skin while I'm updating.

Some more wear you can add is on the tops of the wings next to the cockpit to give the effect of heavy wear. Ink also mentioned "sand blasting" and he has a good point. On the bottom of the flaps, right behind the wheel, apply very heavy paint wear to the base texture. I want to see bare metal baby!

I would also add a touch of sun fading as ink also mentioned, just lighten the base texture a little bit. Take ink's advice with the exhaust as well, it's definitely needed.

All in all, good skin. Keep working to add some more aesthetics and I can see it being a winner. 

[Krusty]

Even heavy use from sandy fields would not "sand blast" the parts down to bare metal. Ever. It takes astounding amounts of wear and tear to even sand off the leading edges of the wings or the prop blades. The Aleutian Tigers were stationed in the Aleutian Islands, which would be humid, almost more like tropical wear and tear. It wasn't a desert-based aircraft.

I agree your panel lines are lacking. They are just grey lines at full opacity. Not subtle enough. As mentioned, try making them black and lowering the opacity, and play around with layer blending modes (i.e. multiply, screen, etc) to see what looks best at which opacity levels.

As mentioned, your exhaust staining needs some improvement.

And finally, the Aleutian Tigers weren't 2-tone green camo. They were solid OD uppers with grey unders. Your depiction is inaccurate in that regard.





Good start, but like the others said, it needs some work.

[ClaymoreMuskies]

Thanks for the comments guys, It helps to get feedback so I can adjust. I will fix the stack smoke as well as the panel lines, I will also start with an aluminum layer to knock of paint which I know should actually be much rougher around certain areas.

Couple points, The Aleutians were wet and cold and more cold. and there was little sun as it is overcast most everyday. Weather killed more pilots in the Aleutians than the enemy. Ground loops were a common thing. Interesting in the above photo is Jack Chenault with his 96 plane, a plane that got sheltered more than others but was still beat to sH17 . Most sat outside in the brutal cold.

Krusty actually some of these P40's did have a two tone camo on the wings and elevator/vertical stabilizer centered around a thought that camo around the edges would break up the lines of the surfaces. In the LIFE photos below you can see that.



the ground did have volcanic sand/pumice, most of the time it was frozen and when there was a melt it was hard to keep the runway dry and often they had inches of water.
Notice the langing gear was coated in Nitol (sp?) and has a yellow/green appearance, I need to work on that.  


great movie on conditions here...
I also noticed in this film even the bombers has the two tone camo around the edges of the surface areas, 80% in on the film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4ocvtzhv54M

and also some had full Camo... why? ... who knows  


find Painting to be very thereputic, oh btw Mozart Kaufman became a painter in his later years.

--)-Clay---

[ink]

what program you using?

[ClaymoreMuskies]

Gimp 2 for the art with the AH2 Viewer, I'm sure I can do the lines better they are just the stock recolored and added to the main bmp as a layer - so when you dont have anything on theres almost no difference.

--)-Clay---

[Krusty]

muskies: Some planes DID have the 2-tone camo, yes. Not any with the tiger's faces, though. Note in the example you give the tiger-painted planes are solid OD, and the ones with mottled green spots have NO tiger faces painted on them.

Replacement craft from another unit, or something like that, I would wager. The camo one was a rare 1-off painted in RAF colors for some reason. I'm not sure as to the why, or how long it was like that (if repainted, or not, etc), but it certainly isn't the norm.

I think you'll be hard-pressed to find a tiger-head airframe with more than 1 shade on the upper side.

[Dragon Tamer]

Gimp 2 for the art with the AH2 Viewer, I'm sure I can do the lines better they are just the stock recolored and added to the main bmp as a layer - so when you dont have anything on theres almost no difference.

--)-Clay---

Since you are using gimp, I may be of more use. I currently have my panel lines layer as a very dark grey scale color with the blending method set to overlay. The color I am using is about 27 grey scale.

[ClaymoreMuskies]

someone tell this guy his camo is wrong on his half million dollar airplane please


I will research a bit more on it though Krusty, maybe Life archives has some better pictures.. I can go either way.

heres another...



Heres a skin from some other nameless game someone did...


Thanks for the tips gonna continue to work on it and even broke out my old WACOM tablet

--)-Clay---

[Krusty]

someone tell this guy his camo is wrong on his half million dollar airplane please
(Image removed from quote.)

Happens ALL the time. You cannot use restored "warbirds" at all in any way as a reference. Even if they get the colors right they often get the details wrong.

Like I said, the camo pattern EXISTED yes, but not on the aleutian tiger-head painted airframes. If you want to do that camo you do a different plane. Also, skins in other games are also inaccurate more times than not. IL2's go through no peer review and have no historical accuracy requirements, and as such fall short of the level of historical detail that Aces High skins adhere to.

Your second photo is nice, though I don't think those colors are right at all. I think that's a restoration paint job, not a museum examination. Far too "mint green" IMO. Further, you can't see the nose on that plane. All you can see is that it has a white stripe on the tail. These white stripes were applied in the field to whichever airframes were received. Even planes transfered from other units got the stripes, it was a theater marking. The tiger's heads were not.

You either do a different plane with those green spots, or you do the tiger head without them. Both are valid, but mixing them is not accurate.

[Karnak]

This one looks like it has the tiger head and has camo:

[Megalodon]