F4U-1A Lt. (jg) Doris "Chico" Freeman VF-17 "L.A. City Limits"

[whiteman]

This is in fact my first rodeo so getting this far seems like a miracle and ya'll helped a ton, ether directly with clues and tips or indirectly with your own threads and back forth with each other.

This is "L.A. City Limits", Chicos 3rd and most famous plane he flew in VF-17 from Piva Yoke, Bougainville. He scored 2 Zeke kills and probables on 1 Zeke and 1 Hamp. He finished the war with 9 total kills with the remaining coming with VF-84 under Roger Hedrick who was also with VF-17. That total tied him with the VF-84 kill lead. At 10:45 am after landing on the Bunker Hill and scoring 2 Nates, he was killed along with many of his squad mates when a kamikaze hit the the VF-84 ready room.

This has always been one of my personal favorites and was obvious choice, with the number of skins opening up there are few other VF-17 planes I'd like to do and requests from our VF-17 squad.

I don't mean to turn this into a picture gallery but being my first skin build i figured views of different angles and shade may be a good idea. In the future I'll stick with just a couple. The black turning a crazy purple is an issue i toned down and might have to go in and really mute any staining behind the cowling. I feel some what better after checking a few other f4u's and seeing it seems to be an issue.

chico by whitemanLS1, on Flickr

LA city limits by whitemanLS1, on Flickr

f4u1 3 by whitemanLS1, on Flickr

f4u1 A by whitemanLS1, on Flickr

f4u1 4 by whitemanLS1, on Flickr

f4u1 6 by whitemanLS1, on Flickr

f4u1 7 by whitemanLS1, on Flickr

f4u1 8 by whitemanLS1, on Flickr

[Arlo]

Very excellent!

[oboe]

That is fantastic for a first skin Whiteman.  Weathering, chipping and grime all look excellent.    I don't mind a lot of pictures, this aircraft and skin is beautiful from every angle.

Might want to check the white stripe outboard on the upper and lower wings - it might just be the camera angle but it looks like it might not be aligned between the upper and lower wings, or perhaps the width is different between upper and lower?

Beautiful skin, though.

My guess on the purple problem is the interaction between the black shade and the underlying blue.  Photoshop has different blending modes between layers - I usually keep mine on Normal, but you could try seeing if the problem still occurs in some other blend mode.  I don't know if its possible to fix, though you probably notice it more than anyone.   I don't see it on my end in any of these shots.

Shame about Freeman.   <S>

[whiteman]

Very excellent!

Thanks Arlo knew you would appreciate this and have some background to go with it!

That is fantastic for a first skin Whiteman.  Weathering, chipping and grime all look excellent.    I don't mind a lot of pictures, this aircraft and skin is beautiful from every angle.

Might want to check the white stripe outboard on the upper and lower wings - it might just be the camera angle but it looks like it might not be aligned between the upper and lower wings, or perhaps the width is different between upper and lower?

Beautiful skin, though.

My guess on the purple problem is the interaction between the black shade and the underlying blue.  Photoshop has different blending modes between layers - I usually keep mine on Normal, but you could try seeing if the problem still occurs in some other blend mode.  I don't know if its possible to fix, though you probably notice it more than anyone.   I don't see it on my end in any of these shots.

Shame about Freeman.   <S>

Thank you oboe! I’ve been wanting to do this for years but wasn’t sure I could, took a plague to get me to give it a shot. I think that is misaligned and will start a list of fixes. The purple should be toned down in these. Devil gave me some advice on which black to use to minimize it. I did all that grime over again with a “lighter” black, then I went through the layer settings to make sure none were set to something odd like multiply. Also think you’re right about the blue and black combo, I work in print and blues going purple is the first thing I look at there. I may try overlay before toning it down again.

[Devil 505]

Excellent job for a first timer. I love the weathering you achieved on the fuel tank.

Here are a few tips to make your skin even better:

Darken your shade of white. It really glows. Unfortunately whites need to be significantly toned down to minimize the glowing.

Add a noise layer to the paint to give it more texture. Greebo gives a great example of this on page 2 of his P-38 build log. If you did this already, then just turn up the effect a bit and see what happens.

Another good way to make more variance in the paint is to make layers of splotches in dark brown, dark olive, and a sandy brown. I like using the sandy color heavily on walkways and steps. The dark olive is great for areas where oil staining is frequent. (also, the dark staining aft of the cowl flaps might look great using a dark olive instead of black - I assume that's oil.) A combination of all three shades in small random blobs are great for general coverage.

It seems to me that you can add more shading to the fabric control surfaces. They seem very flat to me. That said, I'm not sure how apparent rib detail is on the average Corsair.
 

[Spikes]

Hell of a skin Sir.

[whiteman]

Excellent job for a first timer. I love the weathering you achieved on the fuel tank.

Here are a few tips to make your skin even better:

Darken your shade of white. It really glows. Unfortunately whites need to be significantly toned down to minimize the glowing.

Add a noise layer to the paint to give it more texture. Greebo gives a great example of this on page 2 of his P-38 build log. If you did this already, then just turn up the effect a bit and see what happens.

Another good way to make more variance in the paint is to make layers of splotches in dark brown, dark olive, and a sandy brown. I like using the sandy color heavily on walkways and steps. The dark olive is great for areas where oil staining is frequent. (also, the dark staining aft of the cowl flaps might look great using a dark olive instead of black - I assume that's oil.) A combination of all three shades in small random blobs are great for general coverage.

It seems to me that you can add more shading to the fabric control surfaces. They seem very flat to me. That said, I'm not sure how apparent rib detail is on the average Corsair.
 

Thanks Devil, I figured I’d probably end up a CVS receipt long list so this is very encouraging! I darkened the white, I’ll probably need to darken the numbers and insignias some more. Bumped up noise and dirt mask opacities. Went back and used an green, that definitely knocked out the purple haze. I’ll get working one those surfaces hopefully tomorrow, I’ll take look at references and see what they look like. I wasn’t sure how the maps would treat certain objects wasn’t sure those would show.

I got a question here, when in offline mode the sun looks like a supernova. Extremely bright and huge while in the cockpit, external view is normal. Is there something I need to adjust for that go back to a normal level?

Hell of a skin Sir.

Thank you Sir!

[lyric1]

 

[FTJR]

Nice Job Whiteman

[Devil 505]

Thanks Devil, I figured I’d probably end up a CVS receipt long list so this is very encouraging! I darkened the white, I’ll probably need to darken the numbers and insignias some more. Bumped up noise and dirt mask opacities. Went back and used an green, that definitely knocked out the purple haze. I’ll get working one those surfaces hopefully tomorrow, I’ll take look at references and see what they look like. I wasn’t sure how the maps would treat certain objects wasn’t sure those would show.

I got a question here, when in offline mode the sun looks like a supernova. Extremely bright and huge while in the cockpit, external view is normal. Is there something I need to adjust for that go back to a normal level?

Thank you Sir!

The Sun in my film viewer is kinda opposite. In the cockpit, it's a bright pin head, but looks almost normal sized in external view.

A note on darkening the white. I'm currently using RGB 163/163/160. It will look very gray in the color selector and may look too gray at first when you put it on the skin. Trust me, it will take a shade that dark to reduce the flaring to a reasonable level. If it looks too dark, don't lighten the white but darken the Intermediate Blue until you reach the right balance. Also, your Insignia Blue is too light. I noticed in your reference pics that it is very much darker than the Sea Blue of the main airframe. It will also help bring the darker white into proper contrast.

Another thing I noticed, you did not seem to continue to chip the paint on the leading edge of the wings outboard of the guns. Some more chips will help give the wings a more balanced look. I would even add some light chipping to the cowl ring, canopy frame, and rear stabilizers to round out the wear of the forward facing parts.

Keep up the good work. This is very impressive already.

[Greebo]

That's a really nice skin Whiteman, well done. I agree with the previous comments about adding a bit more dirt and paint chipping and altering the colour balance to allow for AH's lighting quirks, but otherwise great job.

[Nefarious]

Amazing Detail. Great to see the F4U getting some more love! Keep up the good work! <S>

[Puma44]

Very nice!  Excellent “wear & tear” detail gives it that realistic rode hard and put away wet look.

[SIK1]

 

Looking good Tex.

 
Sik

[Vraciu]

Nicely done, especially for a first attempt.   You'll only get better from here, too.