Bat Out of Hell

[Greebo]

Thanks to Lyric1 for his help in finding and interpreting the photos of this aircraft.

"Bat Out of Hell" was the P-38G of Lt. James Hagenback of the 94th Fighter Squadron while based in Sardinia in the second half of 1943. As well as the distinctive bat painted across the nose his aircraft featured red spinners for Med theatre ID and the 94th's yellow wingtips squadron ID marking.

As part of the 1st Fighter Group, the 94th flew missions over Northern France as part of the 8th Air Force for a couple of months from June 1942 before joining the 12th Air Force in the Mediterranean in August. They fought in the Tunisia, Sicily and Italy campaigns, flying both bomber escort and ground attack sorties. In November 1943 they became part of the 15th Air Force and from then until the end of the war flew long range escort missions to targets in Southern Europe.

[Vraciu]

Beautiful. 

The nose art is fabulous.

[whiteman]

Awesome! Bet that was much more pleasant to do than with the previous map.

[oboe]

Whatta great looking '38!

The Olive Drab looks perfect to me, both in shade and sheen.

[lyric1]

 

[Shuffler]

WOW I'll be flying a G for awhile now

[Greebo]

Thanks guys. This scheme wouldn't have really worked on the old shape, the top and bottom of the fuselage on that were stretched horizontally. So the bat's hair and teeth would have had big gaps down the centre lines, imagine a reverse Mohawk hair do with its front teeth knocked out. On the new P-38s there is a tiny bit of stretching at one spot just below the nose, but nothing compared to the old one.

The olive drab's the same I've used before (RGB 83/79/61) but on this skin the brown dirt layers and the de-saturation layers are heavier which affects the colour. The lighting effects are done the way I described it in the old P-38 build log thread.

I'll also get a J and an L done this month in time for the next skins review, haven't decided what exactly ones yet but probably an NMF PTO J and an MTO or ETO L.

[Volron]

And so it begins.  I'm so looking forward to seeing what is put on the table.


Also; Wasn't there a couple of skins someone (maybe you?) mentioned for the 38, but would not even remotely attempt due to the fact that they simply would not look good no matter what you did?  Do you have those on the burner?

[RichardDarkwood]

very nice

[Devil 505]

Beautiful job, Greebo.

[SIK1]

Very cool.     I always liked the G.

 
Sik

[Greebo]

Also; Wasn't there a couple of skins someone (maybe you?) mentioned for the 38, but would not even remotely attempt due to the fact that they simply would not look good no matter what you did?  Do you have those on the burner?

I don't think it was me, but there are certainly a lot of schemes that wouldn't have looked good on the old P-38 shape. Anything with complex art that wraps round the nose, shark mouths or checkers for example.

I'm not planning too far ahead at the moment until I know what other skinners are doing WRT P-38 skins. For the first few skins I'll just try to cover as many scenario bases as possible with the schemes I choose, i.e. MTO, ETO, PTO, D Day etc.

[Vraciu]

I intend to maybe do CURLY SIX, GENTLE ANNIE, and LITTLE RED HEAD II.  Although I've contemplated just updating my current Mustang stuff then calling it a day.   Guess we'll see how long it takes me to finish this template.

[Greebo]

I know it can be hard to get motivated to redo your template when a shape gets updated, this is the seventh time its happened to me. The new P-38 template is a huge improvement over the old one though and after you complete your first template the other two need only a little extra work to convert over so you get three variants for the price of one.

[Vraciu]

Thanks, G.  Yeah, I'm kinda bummed.   I was finally figuring out the previous template so this one is gonna be a grind.   Thankfully your default is beautifully done so it gives me a great resource to pattern off of.