Yak-9 Southern Front, Opinions Please

[glenmorangie]

This one is almost soup. Opinions, Please.  Info below.






Here's the information:

Info.txt:
Yak-9R, Southern Front, 1944
293 IAP
Pilot Unknown
Manufactured at Zavoda 153
Camouflage: AII Brown, Light Brown, Blue
Reference: Soviet Air Force Fighter Colours 1941-1945, Eric Pilawskii pp. 164, 169, 186, (pictures) 187.
Color chips obtained from Eric Pilawskii on-line at "Modelling the Aircraft of the Soviet VVS".

Known Adjustments:

Control surfaces, panel lines and shape:
I have 3 sets of line drawings of the aircraft in various versions. None of the 3 match one another when properly scaled.  None of the 3 matches the AH skin when scaled. Panel lines, fairings, access panels and control surfaces are all “best-guess” for size and location.  There are no trim-tabs on the AH skin, “no push” stencils are improperly placed on the control surfaces.  Shape and size of the skeletons of the control surfaces matched to the AH skin.  These are different on each of the different line-drawings, too.

Wing Roots: The forward and aft portions of the wing roots are skinned from two tiny areas out on the wing.  
1) The camouflage pattern on the right wing was adjusted from the standard to get the wing roots dark brown at the proper places.
2) Portions of the wing roots are impossible to weather.

Underside Fuselage:
The fuselage underside is skinned from the inner wing.
1) The gear doors are not accurate.  Panel lines must stop so they are not repeated on the underside of the fuselage.
2) The fuselage underside is not weathered.
3) The sides of the scoop are unavailable for stencils.

Underside Wing Mirroring:
The wing underside is mirrored.
1) Weathering is the same on both wings.
2) The stencils on the left wing are mirror.

Changes/Additions:
Fuel Gauges: Added correct “late” fuel gauges per the “Modelling the VVS” website.
Lift Points: Added indications of lift points.
Stencils: Added stencils in correct places where possible.  They look great at 1200dpi. When sized to a line 5 pixels high, they are generally unreadable, but I felt the airplane looked better with them, so I left them on.
Wing and tail panel lines: Removed, there are none.  The airplane is plywood covered, coated with resin and sanded. The side fuselage and nose panels are metal and removable. The fuel tanks show from below. Small Fuel-filler and access panels show from above.
Weathering: I have 4 books with pictures of Yaks in them.  I have never seen an airplane this dirty or weathered.  There is exactly one photo which shows any wear at all around the wing-root.  There are few photos showing exhaust. There are no photos showing leading edge chipping. It is possible the airplanes did not last that long.  The photos may be of very poor quality. There is a comment in one of the books which indicates the Russian Ground crews took great pride in the appearance of their aircraft. There are many references to repainting in the field.  Perhaps they did do a good job.  In any case a totally clean airplane just “doesn’t look right”.

Approximate effort involved, just for interest:
PhotoShop issues: 20 hours
Original camo study: 2 hours
Control surface generation, shading, fitting to the skin: 15 hours
Markings: 3 hours
Stencils, cleanup and placement: 4 hours
Figuring out where the wing-root skin came from: 20 hours ( no kidding, 10 days, every night)
Camo skin-wrap: 2 hours
Weathering: 2 hours
Panel lines, screws and rivets: 8 hours
Probably half the time was “learning how”.

I'm not totally happy, I am reaching exhaustion.  Thanks for your help and honest opinions...

[Fruda]

Looks good, but it should look more weathered. The paint lines are too fine for a Russian fighter.

[glenmorangie]

The skin has what looks like a 4-inch overspray, which about matches the photos.  The pics here look very hard-edged, for some reason.  I'll go back and take a look.

[AaronM2]

it looks good but.... u should do a little bit more weathering on the upering then it would look great keep it up:aok

[United]

You did a great job with the wood weathering, but how about adding some dirt and grime?  Might make it look better, but its great as of now too.

[Easyscor]

Have you checked to see what it will look like with AH squad art?

I'm thinking you might want to adjust the lettering so it isn't covered up.

[thebest1]

Flamboyant...lol i like it

[glenmorangie]

Originally posted by Easyscor
Have you checked to see what it will look like with AH squad art?

I'm thinking you might want to adjust the lettering so it isn't covered up.

Easyscor, how do I check this?  I can only get exterior view offline, I think.  The squad art does not show up there...

Thanks,

[Easyscor]

Take a film in the MA and view it from exterior view.

Of course you must have your squad art in your folder.

Edit: It might be easier to have a squadmate fly a Yak near you.  So long as you have the art in your folder it should show on his plane and you can take a screen shot to get the location.  I haven't checked the film editor to see if the art shows there.

[glenmorangie]

I knew it had to be so easy I'd never think of it...

Thanks!

[Kweassa]

Don't always trust the suggested color chips in the net. The more-or-less proper colors one would expect with a Southern Front VVS fighter is something like this:










 You will notice that the Yak-9T in the pic is the exact one you're skinning. Take note that the general colors of this aircraft is something simular to RAF desert colors, not the flamboyant neon colors.

[glenmorangie]

Originally posted by Kweassa
Don't always trust the suggested color chips in the net. The more-or-less proper colors one would expect with a Southern Front VVS fighter is something like this:

You will notice that the Yak-9T in the pic is the exact one you're skinning. Take note that the general colors of this aircraft is something simular to RAF desert colors, not the flamboyant neon colors.

Thanks very much for the pictures!

The colors are bright!

The chips are the ones Pilawskii sent me to match paint colors with.  They are close to the printed version in the book, see pp 164, 169 and 186.  The correspoding B&W photos are on p 187.  I would have assumed a more 'sand' color but since the references I have are all that wierd 'mustard' color, I stuck with it.

You can't really trust drawings, either, but he had a shot at the proofs, which is all you can hope for.

Pilawskii did not show a top view for the camo, so I went with the NKAP Template, as far as possible.  That wierd loop in the right wing is because of the location used for the wing-root skinning.  The pattern on the model is somewhat different.

The current version has been overlaid with 3 layers of darker color at about 30% transparency, so it is actually much dimmer than the original color, but it is still bright.

The general consensus seems to be 'more weathering', so I'll take a look at that next weekend.  I thought I'd troll for a few days for comments and suggestions, then start modifying.

I've already seen a mistake in the exhaust I did not notice before, so there are a number of corrections and modifications to be made.

Thanks again,

[straffo]

glenmorangie perhaps this will help you : http://www.1java.org/sh/Russia.html

[glenmorangie]

Originally posted by straffo
glenmorangie perhaps this will help you : http://www.1java.org/sh/Russia.html

Excellent reference!  Thank you!

[Fruda]

Hey Kweassa... That looks much more realistic than the garish burnt red/yellow combination.

I'd love to see that one.