Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Custom Skins => Topic started by: Greebo on April 25, 2009, 04:25:10 PM
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This is my latest Il-2 skin, based on the photo shown below. It is the aircraft of two times Hero of the Soviet Union V.I. Mykhlik of 566 ShAP.
From studying the photo I reckon there are three top colours with the darkest looking like it was applied in the field. I've gone for black on top of a faded brown/green scheme as it seemed to match the photo best when I grey scaled screenshots of the skin. The red of the Leningrad symbol and fin stripe seem more faded than the red on the stars which have presumably been repainted. It also looks like a band behind the fuselage star has been overpainted since the underside of the fuselage has a darker patch there. The green/brown scheme on the rest of the aircraft is based on other Il-2 photos I have.
(http://www.gfg06.dial.pipex.com/screenshots3/566_ShAP_Il-2M3_SC1.jpg)
(http://www.gfg06.dial.pipex.com/screenshots3/566_ShAP_Il-2M3_SC2.jpg)
(http://www.gfg06.dial.pipex.com/photos/566_ShAP_Il-2_photo.jpg)
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Anther beauty.
RE: The third color and re-painting and fading. Is it possible that the "third" color is over painting or re painting in an original color over the same faded color?
Just a thought.
Either way, looks great.
:aok
wrongway
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Excellent.
(http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/dc04a1d5fb.jpg) (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)
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Very nice Il-2. When I come back into the game this is the one I'd use I think.
What do the slogans say?
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I tried various colours including unfaded green and the darker grey used on the later Soviet fighters, but they just did not come out dark enough when I greyscaled screenshots and compared them to the photo. The black matched pretty well in tone and was a colour that an Il-2 unit may well have had available, as early Il-2s were painted that shade. With VVS stuff you sometimes have to go with an educated guess.
The red arrow art is the squadron logo and says "For Leningrad", I think the personal slogan says "Revenge for Khristenko".
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It looks great to me!
One thing I'd point out, though, is that you can't simply "greyscale" a RGB image and compare the shades of grey. Real B&W film (especially old vintage WW2 film!!) had so many variations in shades of grey for the same colors. Lighting, weather conditions, paint reflectivity, fading images after 60 years of archiving, bad chemicals in the original film, the developing of the original negatives, or even the development of the original prints, can all change how a "grey" looks on the final product. [EDIT: Not to mention the contrast, brightness of the original film! Was it high contrast? Normal? Low contrast film? It all affects how the pixels show up]
I'd go with your gut, go with other examples you know of, and use the best educated guess you can for colors. I wouldn't go on what it looks like when you set color mode to "greyscale"
Looks good, though. Almost like that 109F with similar dark wingtop splotches!
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I know what you mean Krusty but however degraded the photo is, it does show three tones for the upper colours. Other b&w photos of brown/green Il-2s show a very small difference in shade between the upper colours which leads me to assume the lighter two shades are the original scheme, but faded. I feel there is too much of a tone gap for the darker shade to be just a reapplication of one of the other colours.
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Some telepathy here, Greebo. :)
This was the exact IL-2 I was going to request from you when you said you wanted to do some IL-2s. :)
I have a profile which shows the tail band as yellow, trim tab as green and the camo as two-tone. Now that I've seen your skin I agree that your depiction of the camo seems more correct than the profile. I'll send it to you anyway along another scan of that photo.
This will be my default IL-2 skin. :)