Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: acepilot2 on January 23, 2004, 08:23:55 PM
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I edited this messege because the skin is now done...well...unless some little tweaks are necessary. In fact, the following screenies are now a teeny different from the current model in the fact that I edited out the swastikas in the kill count, and that I cleaned up a little bit of the plane...
Still represants what the plane is now, though.
So I present...
The 350th figher squadron/353rd fighter group's "Janie"
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_134_1075001160.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_134_1074984581.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_134_1074984677.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_134_1074984522.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_134_1074984563.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_134_1074984539.jpg)
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Oh yeah, two more things. I am trying to base it off of this photo: (i randomly picked on google...I am going to try and research this plane's history. It will be a research adventure:) )
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_134_1074912134.jpg)
Obviously this plane has a nice clean paint job. However, I am trying to make the plane look like you are flying in WWII, so some of its paint is worn away and there is lots of scratches...
There are also several details that I know are wrong and I will fix later (the P on the tail shouldn't be there, elevator needs white stripes, tail number needs white text box around it, etc.)
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Have fun with your skin, looks like its going good, I made my first Pony skin, but I dont understand how to put the picture in here,lol.
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little fuzzy dice hanging from the canopy.
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acepilot2 said:
comments? I need some constructive criticism, I want it to be as accurate and visually appealing as possible.
wings, tail, are done and cockpit is 1/2 done.
Looks like you're off to a good start but I do have some constructive criticism. My POV here based on my experience building and repairing airplanes in the real world so I think it's good advice. Do with it as you will.
Faded Paint: IMHO, the paint should be a lot less transparent and a lot more like the fresh paint in the actual photo. Most aiplane paint is pretty good, long-lasting stuff and doesn't weather like you have it done there. IMHO you shouldn't be seeing the silver through it, nor should it have such wide, curly "brush marks". It chips, but mostly from were people walk on it (around the cockpit and gunbays), with a little more chipping on parts of the leading edges. It fades a bit, but it takes years for that to get really noticeable. In WW2, this P51D would only have been a few months old.
However, remember how you did this because that look would be great for other things. For instance, pre-WW2, they often painted silver planes with water-based OD camo temporarily for exercises. Temporary paint was also applied to other planes during the war. This stuff came off very much like you've done it here.
Panel Lines and Rivets: IMHO, the stock skins don't do the panel lines very well on painted planes, making them look like trenches. In real life, however, the gap between the skin panels was almost always filled with putty, both to smooth the airflow and keep out water. Thus, when the plane was painted, the panel lines were nearly invisible for fixed panels. You should just have hints of them that are visible only at close range. You'd only really see panel lines around removeable panels like engine cowlings and gunbays. Look at the actual photo--all you can see are the gunbays.
Fasteners on most WW2 planes were also nearly invisible on painted planes. This is because they were countersunk flush with the skin and painted over. The only ones that were really noticeable normally were the big screws and dzus fasteners holding down removeable panels. For this reason, where the plane is painted, you really don't have to bother with doing the rivets (unless it's an old plane with domehead rivets).
On unpainted planes, however, things are different. The putty between the fixed panels was usually black, so gave each silver panel thin black border. However, flush rivets are still very hard to see from a distance because they're almost the same color as the skin. They're only really noticeable under certain lighting conditions, because the rivet heads are cocked at a very slight angle to the skin, so sometimes have a tiny bit more light or shadow on them.
So at the bottom line, my main advice would be to thicken up the paint to make it look like a smoother coat and also to hide the panel lines almost entirely.
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Your cockpit is all wrong, ya need to move some gauges around and get rid of those ammo counters.
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p51.htm
(http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p51-3.jpg)
Vulgar
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Originally posted by Vulgar
Your cockpit is all wrong, ya need to move some gauges around and get rid of those ammo counters.
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p51.htm
(http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p51-3.jpg)
Vulgar
...as much as I would love to change that, it is beyond my control. I just skin the plane...I have no control over the placement of gauges and ammo counters.
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here is the latest shots of the 350th fighter squadron's "Janie"
I used bullethead's advice for the nose area..tried to make it look alot more "clean cut." I will change the wings later to make it look less worn out.
I want to note that it is still not done, and several details I had to leave out due to the limitation in ah skinning (see "ah2 skins: no new plane parts)
-I had to move the "janie" more toward the nose.
-the kill tally is on both sides of the aircraft.
-I had to leave out the "F" right behind the american markings due to the fact that it appeared backwards on the other side of the aircraft
there are a couple too, those are just the major ones.
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_134_1074964657.jpg)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_134_1074964629.jpg)
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Great!
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Hey pilot721, looks great. I have a few Q's for ya. 1.) How did u paint the nosecone, there isnt one in the skins. 2.) How the frigg do you post pics on the BB? 3.) What program do you use to edit your stuff? thanks, I want to post my skin, it is not a real P-51 scheme, just a fun one, but it looks pretty ok.
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That's not even the finished product;)
Edited orignal messege to include latest screenies:)
your questions:
-the nosecone is very tough..took me an hour to find out how to paint it. in P51DSID the area right before the front area meets the fuselage is actually the nosecone skin. Use this pic for reference: (circled nosecone skin in red)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_134_1075000175.jpg)
-how do you post pics on the bb? go here (http://www.onpoi.net/ah) and create an account. then, go to upload file and browse to the pic you want to upload (make sure its in GIF or JPEG format). Then I just copy and the link and post it in the "IMG" bar.
-what program do I use? I work off 30 day free trials of lots of programs. Currently I use 3 main programs: Serif photoplus 5.5 (you can download a 30 day trial free) and vicman's photo editor (completly free) and ms paint, I have found, was very helpful in copy and pasting the actual p51 photos to the cockpit.
So ms paint, serif photoplus, vicman's photo.
However, I would recommend adobe photoshop (go to their website) and download the free trial. My 30 day trial is up:(
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Ok thanks for all the help. One last question, when you edited the skins, how on earth did you get to keep the panel seams on the exterior. Whenever I paint on the skins they disappear. My next post will have a few pics of my fun skin.
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If you have a good photoshop program (not ms paint) you can edit the hue/saturation/lightness and gamma which basically changes the color of the plane without painting over anything.
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Yea, I have paint shop pro 8 now, but have "aquired" photoshop. So if I change the sautation, I can just paint over the seams, and they will still be there?
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no, don't paint over the seams. adjust the gamma or hue and it changes the color of the plane without getting changing the picture in any ay (excpet for color) if you want to change the color of a more specific thing, use the lasso and draw a box around it.
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thanks for all the help. Now only if I could get this omniweb thing to work...it wont upload my pictures. They are in the correct format. Oh, and up on your cowel, there is still a bit of blue that shows through on the top.
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OK, got it to work, here is my practice plane "Pee Fiddy 1"
(http://[img]http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_249_1075043712.jpg)[/IMG]
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Nice!
I'll fix that cowl.
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I manually put some seams back in on the cowl and on the top of the rudder. Photoshop is hard to use, so untill I can mix the hue and saturation more, I'll just keep going pixel by pixel,lol. I think this is starting to look more and more like "Big Beautiful Doll" Ill checherboard my cowl and it will be pretty close.
Pee Fiddy1-Soon to transform to the real plane "Big Beautiful Doll"
(http://[img]http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_249_1075051338.jpg)[/IMG]
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_249_1075051313.jpg)
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My current plane skin is a little "grainy" on the outside when you zoom in close, so I will be redoing some of the "grainy" parts to make it higher-res.
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I would have never of noticed that texture if you hadnt said anything,lol. I still havnt got the nosecone down yet even after looking at your photo. Did you just guess till you got it right?
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it was trial and error till I got it right. I figured out alot about the nosecone-for example, I noticed maybe the bottom half of the nose texture was missing, so that meant I needed to makemore of the texture toward the bottom (if you turn your head sideways and pictures the left part as the bottom, that is the skin texture for the pony)
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(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_250_1075076808.jpg)
The side view of my P51d night fighter
the top view(looks like a p80)
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_250_1075077128.jpg)
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WTF?? looks cool! Is the whole plane transparent or is there just no color at all, looks like you can see the tarmac right trough it. Too bad we wont be able to use it in the game.
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When our jug comes out, can anyone make a skinn of this plane for me?
P-47D-30-RA 44-33813 "Balls Out" of Lt.Mitt Thompson, 509st FS/405th FG, Ophoven (Y-32), early 1945.
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the top view the color is black but some how it looks transparent
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Hey pilot, got a question. Is there any possible way the checkerboard the cowl with out it stretching and looking funny up top like by the spinner and in front of the canopy? If you dont get what I am talking about, I will post a pic, just let me know.
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Yes, I know what your talking about but I am not that sure.
My best guess would be to actually compress the the squares the top.
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Allright, I will see if I can maybe try that. This is what happens with more checkers.
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/ah_249_1075232413.jpg)