B-24 Moby Dick 41-24047 90th BG/320th BS

[Knite]

Hi all,

As always, asking for advice. Greebo, I tried to check to see if you had done this, and while I saw references to the group/squadron, I didn't see if you ever did this one or not.

If anyone has done this one already, that I can't find, please accept my apologies.
If not, any and all advice is welcome =)
The coloration has been tricky because of B&W footage, but I found paintings and models of this aircraft that show the same coloration I've used here so I'm fairly sure I'm ok.
I still have some details yet to add, like miscolored panels and such, but this is the gist.

[rogerdee]

looking very good i  not figured out how to chnge the shiny bit on  b24s yet  so your ahead of me .

by the way can you change the b17  from being shiny  in olove drab?
keep up the good work

rogerdee

[Wolf14]

The black and whites dont show any light unders of the engine cowlings. I always thought Moby was all olive.

[Knite]

I'm not entirely sure wolf.

Looking at this picture


and this one


If you look very very closely, you CAN see a shade differentiation on the underside of the engines. I think in a lot of pictures this is lost because of shadowing. However, these two pictures appear to be of a different B24 model, even though it shares the same markings, squadron, and number of the one I included in the top post.

Maybe I'm wrong =)

[Knite]

Rogerdee...

You need to look for a file in the same skin folder as your skin. The file name is material.txt

edit it.

it has 4 main lines. This is what I BELEIVE they mean

Ambient - Overall aircraft lighting
Diffuse - The transition lighting between the Ambient and Specular.
Emissive - This is the light the plane gives off?
Specular - The "shinyness" of the aircraft.

Now, you'll notice there's 3 sets of numbers for each one....
0.xxx

These numbers go from 0.000 to 0.999
(I think)

The lower the number, the less light. The 3 sets stand for the Red, Green, and Blue color spectrums, for example

This
0.900, 0.000, 0.000, specular
would mean the plane would have a bright red shine

Here's what I use for my B24s

0.375,0.375,0.375,Ambient
0.500,0.500,0.500,Diffuse
0.000,0.000,0.000,Emissive
0.220,0.220,0.220,Specular
8.200,Power


Hope that helps

[Wolf14]

ok I can see a slight difference but what I am noticing is that the lighter color is showing in the bottom 1/4 area. Yours is starting above the 1/2 area.

Wish folks back then would have known we'd want to model their airplanes for an airplane game and would have taken better pictures for yall skinners to reference.

[oboe]

Hi Knite - looking good.   Not sure, but the color looks a little dark to me - have you checked out the reference colors at Skinner's Heaven ?

Also I think the top color extends down further on the engine nacelles, and ends in a wavy, sprayed out rather than a straight line.   Same is probably true of the top color on the fuselage where it meets the bottom color - I don't think this edge was masked for a sharp border...

[Greebo]

That's a better looking plane than the Bar K imo, nice work on it.

I was looking at doing this 90th BG Liberator at one point, but I couldn't find any other info on it (tailcodes etc.) so I gave up and did the Bar K.


 

BTW Knite, may I ask what sources you get your pictures from?

[Knite]

Sure Greebo.

I normally get a good start by going here

http://www.b24bestweb.com/
Has a LOT of pictures of B24s. Mainly nose art.

However, for Moby Dick, I found a webpage specifically for the 90th...

http://www.90thbombgroup.org/

I also will sometimes look for pictures of models or paintings to get an idea of coloration and such.. for example, the model here...
http://www.us-aircraft.com/b-24gal.htm

Oboe : Are you saying that basically the paint scheme is right, but it's more of a fade from grey to green? As far as the paint coloration, I'll check skinners heaven. So far I've generally been going by paint codes based on CMYK for design, and not RGB for skinning, so I'm sure the "heaven" would be a help =)

Strange part is, I know I've looked on that website a million times and don't remember color swatches. oh well. lol

[oboe]

Hi Knite,

I think your scheme is basically correct - I just can't tell for sure from the b & w photos.    It's possible that your dk green is correct, but needs to be lightened due to weathereing and sun fading effects.    

I most all cases I've seen though, where the top green color intersects with the bottom grey, it's just an unmasked spray paint border, rather than a straight hard edge as you have.   And it looks to me like the green could be extended downward a little more on the engine nacelles.

Love that scheme though!

[Knite]

Heya Oboe,

I appreciate the help =)
I'm going to see what I can do as soon as I can.

[oboe]

Don't keep us waiting long!

[Guppy35]

Going along with oboe's comment on lightening the top green.  The OD on the combatbirds seemed to weather and lighten fairly quickly, in particular in the Pacific.

I tried to find a photo of a Lib to illustrate the point.  This was the best I could do in terms of color.  It's lighter and almost a brown tint to the OD.

Dan/Slack

[Knite]

What you're saying makes a lot of sense.

Even back when I started Chief Wapello, I just couldn't figure out why the plane always looked dark, even though I was using colors straight from palette websites. All of the websites were pretty close in color, but still looked too dark. Now I know.

=)

[SELECTOR]

us had 2 colours called olive drab...also ww2 colour pics do tint to orange over the years..i think the current OD colour the american planes use is prob close enough to ww2