Melba Lou IV

[Greebo]

Thank you to Lyric1 for finding me the info for this skin. This is one I also did on the old P-38L shape.

Melba Lou IV was the P-38L of Major Hampton E Boggs of the 459th Fighter Squadron, while based in British-held Burma in 1945. Major Boggs was credited with thirteen kills during the war including three in one day on 25th March 1944, for which feat he was awarded a DSC. He later flew F-86 Sabres in the Korean War but he lost his life during a training flight over Wisconsin in 1953. A snow storm prevented him from landing and he was forced to eject from his F-86, but his chute failed to open.

The 459th were the only P-38 unit based in Burma and their aircraft featured some unusual colour schemes. This included painting their natural metal finish P-38Ls with the locally available RAF dark green and sky paints to better blend in with the jungle.

[Vraciu]

Wow.   Really. really nice, G.

[Vraciu]

Those spinners still look bluish-purple on my end.   Looks nice but not sure if that's your intent so I'm mentioning it.

[Devil 505]

Nicely done, Greebo

The spinners don't seem too purple-ish to me but they and the metal showing through on the wing root look a little too dark to me. The metal tone might benefit from some lightening for better contrast.

[Vraciu]

Just checked it on my iPad and it’s purple. 

A hair of desaturation would pull that out of it.   

[lyric1]

 

[Nefarious]

Amazing quality and attention to detail. Incredible work! <S>

[oboe]

Great-looking skin Greebo.  Nice variations in the RAF dark green paint.

[Banshee7]

Welp, I've found my new 38L skin 

Nice work as always, Greebo!  So glad to see you still putting out excellent skins!

<S>

[JimmyD3]

Very nice Greebo. 

[FTJR]

nice one Greebo

[Greebo]

Thanks guys, glad you like it.

The metal is the one I have colour shifted several times to green, however there is a heavy brown dirt wash covering the whole skin which is likely shifting it to back to red a bit. I'll just get rid of the dirt wash over the spinner areas with a mask.

[Vraciu]

Thanks guys, glad you like it.

The metal is the one I have colour shifted several times to green, however there is a heavy brown dirt wash covering the whole skin which is likely shifting it to back to red a bit. I'll just get rid of the dirt wash over the spinner areas with a mask.

I'm still learning your masking technique.   In a nutshell, what will you be putting in that area?  Gray with an opacity adjustment!

[Greebo]

I placed the mask as the top layer of my weathering group. The info in it it is pure white except over the spinners where it is pure black. What this does is make invisible all the data from the layers below the mask, but only from the layers in this group and only in the places where the mask is black. Where the mask is white it has no effect.

There are several other ways I could have deleted the dirt from the spinners but I like using masks for this sort of thing because they are non-destructive and can be edited more easily later on. So for instance if I want to allow a little of the dirt back onto the spinners I can just reduce the mask layer's opacity, or I could move a few of the dirt layers up above the mask layer in the stack. Also if I later use a copy of this whole file as the basis for another skin I can just turn off or delete the mask. I've used masks like this in other skins for recreating the places where ground crew have cleaned off the dirt to reveal the markings or nose art beneath.

[Vraciu]

That's brilliant.