(*passes Schatzi a hankerchief*)
At first I wanted to make the weathering and details lighter than the black itself, then I realized I'd go the other way. The skin wasn't black, it was a dark grey. So I'd make the details even darker. When you have a line of rivets or what-not that are painted and you put them in the sun and they fade, usually the space between the rivets holds up the best (not entirely sure why). I don't mean on aircraft, I mean on things I've seen, old rusted drums, paint on walls and on wooden shelves and decks and so forth.
So what I did was I made shadow-like dark spots behind all rivets and all panel lines, as if these were the original colors and the rest had faded, but this was more what it should be like.
As for the areas of the wing where armorers would be, I could have gone two ways. I could have made them lighter or darker. On the Ki84 I did I made them lighter, but this was for several reasons. On this one I was thinking the coat of paint would be much higher quality than the IJA paint. It would also be reapplied if it wore off. So I made the spots the armorers would scuff up darker. Think of it as they're wearing down the surface of the paint into a smoother (more glossy) area by constantly rubbing on it, standing on it, lying on it. They're scraping off the matt coating.
That was my thinking. Like I said: I wanted to try some new things.
Jury's still out on whether they're good things or bad things.
