Maj. George E. Preddy, Jr. - P-51B "Cripes A'Mighty" (HO*P) - 352nd FG, 487th FS

[Vraciu]

Thanks to Devil505, Oboe, and Perdue3 for feeback on the color scheme.


Maj. George E. Preddy, Jr.
P-51B-10-NA “Cripes A'Mighty" (HO*P)
S/N 42-106451
352nd FG, 393rd FS
June 1944

This P-51B-10-NA (s/n 42-106451) of the 352nd FG, 487th FS named "Cripes A'Mighty" and coded HO*P was the first of three Mustangs flown by Maj. George E. Preddy, Jr.  He scored 5.833 victories in this aircraft on his way to becoming the top P-51 ace of all time.   Preddy logged 143 combat missions in P-40s, P-47s, and P-51s in both the Pacific and European theaters with a total of 26.833 aerial victories and 5 strafing credits.   His exploits are well-chronicled.   

While the Commanding Officer of the 328th Fighter Squadron he was killed in a P-51D on 25 December 1944 by friendly ground fire.   His decorations include the Air Medal with 6 oak leaf clusters (1 silver, 1 bronze), the American Campaign Medal, the American Defense Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Purple Heart, the Silver Star with 1 oak leaf cluster, the World War II Victory Medal, the Croix de Guerre (Belgian), the Distinguished Flying Cross with 6 oak leaf clusters, and the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with 4 bronze stars.

This particular aircraft was transferred to Lt. Carl Tafel of the 487th FS and re-coded HO*R.   It was lost due to mechanical failure near Munich, Germany on 16 July 1944 while being flown by Jule V. Conrad.  He bailed out and was taken as a Prisoner of War.









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And all juvenile, passive aggressive haters that just can't bear to say anything nice about my work can pound it.  I don't need your validation. : )

[Devil 505]

The blue here is an improvement, but to me it still looks too bold. Maybe Oboe and give you the RGB of the blue he used in the final version of his P-38 "My Little Pig". I think that blue would be perfect for this.

Other than the blue, it looks damn near perfect.

[Vraciu]

[Vraciu]

 

[Devil 505]

Ok, let's have a look.


Now ask yourself, which blue looks closer to this?

Oboe's


Or yours


While neither is a dead on match, Oboe's is closer in brightness and saturation to your reference photo.

[Vraciu]

Ok, let's have a look.
(Image removed from quote.)

Now ask yourself, which blue looks closer to this?

Oboe's
(Image removed from quote.)

Or yours
(Image removed from quote.)

While neither is a dead on match, Oboe's is closer in brightness and saturation to your reference photo.

And is a completely different tone/shade. 

Your original comment was about too much boldness.   My color is not as bold as the photo.

[Devil 505]

  My color is not as bold as the photo.

Yours is bolder than the photo.

To better match the tone of the blue in the photo you need to reduced the boldness of your blue by lowering its saturation and shifting the hue toward indigo slightly.

But the color balance of that photo also looks like it's shifted to the blue side also. So to me the true color is probably needs less hue shifting towards indigo than what is needed to match the photo.

[Vraciu]

Yours is bolder than the photo.

To better match the tone of the blue in the photo you need to reduced the boldness of your blue by lowering its saturation and shifting the hue toward indigo slightly.

But the color balance of that photo also looks like it's shifted to the blue side also. So to me the true color is probably needs less hue shifting towards indigo than what is needed to match the photo.

That (mime) is NOT bold.  It’s PALE. 

How do you describe that as BOLD?

Or this?  If mine is bold then this is, too. 



I’m more than willing to make adjustments but unless we speak the same lingo then I’m going to remain confused. 


The paint is solid and somewhat faded.   If I keep desaturating it then it will turn gray. 

[lyric1]

 

[Vraciu]

You’re an army of one, bro.   

[Devil 505]

That is NOT bold.  It’s PALE. 

How do you describe that as BOLD?

Or this?

(Image removed from quote.)

I’m more than willing to make adjustments but unless we speak the same lingo then I’m going to remain confused.

Paleness would describe a color that is both too light and not saturated enough. To correct a color that is too pale you would need to both darken it and add more color. Your blue has the opposite problem - it is not pale enough. Lightness is damn close, but the color is too saturated.

I'm not trying to be a hard ass. I think you are really close to having a truly superb skin. I'm just trying to push you into achieving it.

 

[Vraciu]

Paleness would describe a color that is both too light and not saturated enough. To correct a color that is too pale you would need to both darken it and add more color. Your blue has the opposite problem - it is not pale enough. Lightness is damn close, but the color is too saturated.

I'm not trying to be a hard ass. I think you are really close to having a truly superb skin. I'm just trying to push you into achieving it.

 

That’s what I pay you for... 


Let me go take another look...

[oboe]

Crap!  I just wrote out a wall of text but it didn't make it for some reason.   Just the highlights of what I thought I posted:

1) no problem here with the blue - it seems within the range of values Ive seen for 352nd noses (I'm including WWII color photos, color profiles, paintings, restored warbirds, etc.). I don't include Snoots Sniper in that list because the Sniper seems to be a outlier toward the dark end.

2) discussions of the color of the blue aren't hard to find - we arent the only group that differs in opinion.   I'm beginning to think in real life, there may have been more than one blue used.

3) you could vary it a little - fade (desaturate and lighten) or add chipping along panel lines, add noise to the layer, add dirt variations per Greebo's excellent build log (but keep it subtle)

4) I have question about the 'O' and 'P' partially within the white DDay stripes - these would've been typically repainted after the white stripe had been applied, or sometimes the white stripe had cutouts around the letters.   Also, with the profiles I've seen, the aircraft ID letter for the 352nd birds was on tail only and not reproduced on the fuselage behind the star...

5) I can get my RGB vallues but it would be more accurate if you just grabbed the screenshot and opened it in your graphics program and used the color sampler tool to find the RGB values.  The RGB is only the starting value and the result is modified by weathering and opacity settings, etc.

[oboe]

Here's one to make me eat my words - WWII color and they all look dark like Snoots Sniper

[Vraciu]

The photo of the airplane after it was reassigned shows the letter on the tail.   I never considered that it might be an R, HOWEVER, the HOP on the fuselage is partially painted over with some bleed through.

I do have noise but this is a balancing act as it causes all the nose seams to flare up pretty badly.   Also the paint on the nose looks pretty solid so I didn't chip the paint there.   

What else?


I forgot all the points you made.  Lol

Oh, blue shade.  I know for a fact that multiple shades of blue were used.  DOPEY OKIE is an example of this as the panel for the nose art was not repainted when the rest of the nose was and you can tell it is vastly different.   There is some history behind this online somewhere.  A guy has a metal model (or something like that) from the war that was done with the group's paint. 


https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/attachments/dopie-1-jpg.121853/