Author Topic: Oboe, member of the 79th FS says thanks (Read 695 times)

Widewing · « **on:** March 24, 2005, 11:05:13 PM »

I forwarded a few screen shots of the skin you did of Jack Ilfrey's P-38J, "Happy Jack's Go Buggy" to Art Heiden of the 79th. You may know that Jack passed away recently. I knew and admired Jack. Art is still with us (I'll forward you his e-mail if you are interested in getting in touch). Art was very pleased to see Jack's P-38 done for a flight sim, so I'm passing along his thanks.

Should you feel ambitious, here's a profile of Art's P-38J, which by the way was the featured aircraft on the US Mail's P-38 Stamp and few years ago.

Again, thanks for your efforts. The P-38 veterans appreciate what you and the others are doing.

My regards,

Widewing

Widewing · « **Reply #1 on:** March 24, 2005, 11:13:18 PM »

For the Mustang guys, here's Jack's P-51D.

My regards,

Widewing

Widewing · « **Reply #2 on:** March 24, 2005, 11:22:22 PM »

You gent's can read Jack's book, which is available from Schiffer Books.

You can read a brief book review here.

My regards,

Widewing

Guppy35 · « **Reply #3 on:** March 25, 2005, 12:58:46 AM »

Mark Copeland lives about 2 miles from me and is a member of the Twin Cities Aero Historians. He always laughed about getting his name on that book as he really didn't do much but know someone in the publishing end of things.

The guy who did the art on the 55th vs the Luftwaffe book is also a Minnesota guy, John Valo, who has done a ton of aviation art for books. His models show up on Hyperscale and elsewhere too.

He's another member of TCAH. Lots of us WW2 aviation junkies with nothing better to do in those long Minnesota winters apparently

Dan/CorkyJr

Cobra412 · « **Reply #4 on:** March 25, 2005, 01:26:02 AM »

Unfortunately Widewing currently a Mustang skin like that is impossible to do. The Go Buggy would mirror. The I on the rudder might not be as big of a deal because of how it's set on the surface. It could very easily match up fine though.

It's because of this I can't do planes such as Lou IV which I had almost fully completed when I found the show stoppers. I also had to drop Big Beautiful Doll and Contrary Mary for very similiar reasons.

Guppy35 · « **Reply #5 on:** March 25, 2005, 01:50:41 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Cobra412
Unfortunately Widewing currently a Mustang skin like that is impossible to do. The Go Buggy would mirror. The I on the rudder might not be as big of a deal because of how it's set on the surface. It could very easily match up fine though.

It's because of this I can't do planes such as Lou IV which I had almost fully completed when I found the show stoppers. I also had to drop Big Beautiful Doll and Contrary Mary for very similiar reasons.

What really needs to happen is a rework of both the 51B/C and D, hopefully with a Malcom hood option for the 51B/C too. Then it could be skinner's heaven for the Mustang guys.

Sadly, compared to the 38s, 109s etc, the Mustang just doesn't look nearly as good, the B in particular looks off to me.

Dan/CorkyJr

Cobra412 · « **Reply #6 on:** March 25, 2005, 03:01:49 PM »

Guppy that is true. It would just be nice to avoid all the weird mirroring and smearing going on in the skins. It'd also be nice to have only the absolutley necessary areas that need paint indicated on the skins.

Basically if we could get the meshes for each skin so we know exactly what areas need painting it'd be much easier. I don't know if IL2 FBs skin setup is better but it seems there is very few work arounds needed in them.

I'm also hoping the new skin viewer will help cut down the time it takes to make skins. Considering I have to make my adjustments in Adobe Illustrator then export them to Adobe Photoshop and then save them in the game and then open the game to view the skin. I can run the game in the background so It cuts out the extra time opening the game but it slows the pc down alot doing that.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #7 on:** March 25, 2005, 05:46:14 PM »

All the planes will be redone and as they are, the mirroring will no longer be an issue. You can see this in the new planes as well as the ones that have been reworked.

Cobra412 · « **Reply #8 on:** March 25, 2005, 07:05:49 PM »

Skuzzy I knew it was posted previously that the planes would be redone to current AH2 standards. I know for alot of the airframes out there it kills any chance of doing particular skins on them with the current setup.

I figured if I can make all the different variants(different panel and access doors for each variant) of the 109 G-10s it would make it easier to convert later on if you added a model which would fit the panel line charts. Then I could easily select one variants extra panel lines and deselect another to fit the model.

Question though in regards to the 109 G-10 that we have now. What particular variant is it? The panel lines done in the original skin plus the absence of one of the upper antennas makes it hard to distinguish. I've looked to see if these variants matched the HTC skin: 130000, 150700, 490000, 610300, and 770000. It seems that from all of those a few things don't match up from what is drawn on the HTC skin for the fuselage, belly and the upper/lower wings. The HTC skin does however match everything on the K4 except for one thing which is the 3rd shell ejection port on the belly. It also seems that the skin has protuding chin marks but the model itself doesn't. Basically it was drawn on opposed to being added in the model itself. Not that big of a deal really and I'm sure it was done to minimize polys or something.

oboe · « **Reply #9 on:** March 26, 2005, 12:05:29 PM »

Thank you for this post, Widewing. I was saddened to learn of Jack's passing but I am always glad to know veterans appreciate what we are doing here. If you can pm Mr Heiden's email address I'd be pleased to send him a note.

There is certainly room in our stable of P38Js for "Lucky Lady". And I would especially like to do a skin for a pilot who's still around and can take a look at the game. The nose art (esp. the photo) looks a little challenging - is it possible to get a larger scale version somewhere? Also, do you know if "Lucky Lady" has a green version? I'm always looking for variety in color schemes and she's awfully similiar to Jack's bird in natural metal.

I remember that stamp - I had a couple of sheets of the aviation set and I saved them for a long time. It was as close as I ever got to collecting stamps.

Thanks again!

Widewing · « **Reply #10 on:** March 26, 2005, 04:08:18 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by oboe
Thank you for this post, Widewing. I was saddened to learn of Jack's passing but I am always glad to know veterans appreciate what we are doing here. If you can pm Mr Heiden's email address I'd be pleased to send him a note.

There is certainly room in our stable of P38Js for "Lucky Lady". And I would especially like to do a skin for a pilot who's still around and can take a look at the game. The nose art (esp. the photo) looks a little challenging - is it possible to get a larger scale version somewhere? Also, do you know if "Lucky Lady" has a green version? I'm always looking for variety in color schemes and she's awfully similiar to Jack's bird in natural metal.

I remember that stamp - I had a couple of sheets of the aviation set and I saved them for a long time. It was as close as I ever got to collecting stamps.

Thanks again!

Private message is on its way.

My regards,

Widewing

Kev367th · « **Reply #11 on:** March 27, 2005, 07:39:49 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Skuzzy
All the planes will be redone and as they are, the mirroring will no longer be an issue. You can see this in the new planes as well as the ones that have been reworked.

Not strictly true -
The P38 spinners are divided in half and mirrored from the one available place on the 'template'.
In effect one half of the spinner is used to do all 4 halfs. Stopped me doing a rather colorful PJ

Spinners should be 6 equal sized skewed stripes but cant be done

Stretching is still an issue on the P38 also, especially the boom gear doors and upper/lower part of booms and intakes.