a6m5!!! bonzai!

[Citabria]

looking good    
(removed pics due to size)
     
   
I have 1 or 2 good questions and some dumb ones though         ...

1.can you check the position of the Horizontal stabilizer? it looks a bit low on the fuselage, possibly a tiny bit to far forward?
             
           


2. could you make the rear canopy a tiny bit lower where it connects to the pilots canopy that slides back over it?
             
             
             

3. the panel textures are great but the white streaks seem to confuse the shape of the plane a bit. could these be made more subtle with perhaps a lighter shade of green on the fuselage and dark greay on the cowling?

4. for the dark grey/black engine cowling could you make most of it dark with minimum highlights so the viewer will be "tricked" into thinking it is round instead of being made of polygons.
Especially around the very front where the texture map at the front of the engine cowling represents the division between the cowling and the radial engine inside.
Perhaps if this remains the same color the illusion will be more effective. I noticed this from the shot of the undersurface of the zero...
the cowling looks perfectly round! since its uniform darkness is more consistant        

5. that crack that is present just aft of the exhausts around the cowling and just ahead of the windscreen should be a little darker and extend upwards a little higher.
             

is that the mitsubishi paintscheme? I dunno personally (bad memory)the link I had to the reference on it is down        

but just my 2 cents, mostly stuff no one else would notice        

but great job Natdog it's looking awsome        


[This message has been edited by Citabria (edited 05-18-2000).]

[Kieren]

Hate to say it, but Cit is right about the horizontal stab placement. The rest looks fantastic to me (and let me tell you, I will fly it no matter what!).  

[NATEDOG]

I'll look into all that stuff, but as for the "white streaks", If i do anything to them it will be to make them more pronounced, they aren't highlights, they are chips in the paint, these poor birds got tore up, and that's the look i'm going for.

[Vermillion]

You better have that "Bonzai!!!" spirit if your gonna fly this bird.

Cause you won't be landing too many of your kills  

Yum Yum... more Pony Fodder  

------------------
Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure
"Real Men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires"

[Ghosth]

To heck with the outside, Lemme see the gauges & HOW WELL WILL IT FLY!

Ok, the cockpit fix would be nice, but get that baby in production PLEASE!!!!

I won't ask for anything else for at least a month or so, honest!  

[Citabria]

It's gonna look great no matter what you do to it          

I'm just being picky.

but heres a link to a great article on japanese aircraft and their paint defects.
 http://www.j-aircraft.com/research/weathering_question.htm

excerpt from it-
"Conclusion
The alleged poor quality of Japanese paint during the Second World War is a myth,
 and one very difficult to give credence to considering that for centuries Japan
 has produced some truly splendid lacquered objects. The preconception that
 Japanese paint was inferior was in all likelihood brought about by the obvious
 peeling and chipped paint visible on many types of Japanese aircraft from both
 services at different periods. It is known today that the cause of this poor paint
 coverage was the lack of primer under the external color, a reflection on the quality
 of manufacturing rather than the materials. Producing an accurate and believable replica
 of a WW 2 Japanese plane does not automatically imply systematically simulating
 heavy paint chipping. If a modeler knows for certain that a factory applied paint job
 included primer, he should be aware that extensive paint peeling is to be ruled out immediately.
Japanese aircraft were no more likely to be subject to heavy weathering and paint
 chipping than Allied aircraft operating under the same conditions. The assertion
 that Japanese paint was of inferior quality is not at all substantiated in available
 documents or by existing samples of Japanese aircraft skinning. The actual cause
 for this heavily-worn paint is that during some periods of the war, standard
 manufacturing procedures omitted the application of primer, leading directly to
 heavy paint chipping and peeling on many aircraft —
this is the background of this myth."


       captured a6m5(can't get much worse than that   )
"The Zero fighters retained primer as an integral part of the production process as
 the gray-green was used as an undersurfaces color coat to the end of the war"
              unprimed ki43
           

[This message has been edited by Citabria (edited 05-17-2000).]

[Karnak]

Zero is a pretty bird, isn't she.

I think that the Zero'll prove more of a problem than the 'Stang is expecting.

banzai, Banzai, BANZAI!!!!

[funked]

j-aircraft.com rocks

I like this site too:  http://www.marksindex.com/aviation/aviation.html

[Citabria]

yup funked! thats where i got the pic of the a6m3 22        
           a6m5 model 52 profile wingspan 11m
           a6m3 model 32 profile wingspan 11m
           a6m3 model 22 profile wingspan 12m

       mitsubishi factory scheme
     
   heres a pic of the schemes represented in AH, the first one is factory paint job, the second the spinner has been repainted brown and the white around the red circles is painted over in the field (it's a mitsubishi made a6m)
here is the link that has great info on the a6m
 http://home.interlink.or.jp/~katoh00/

I'm sure superfly and natedog hate it when I start nitpicking

sorry nate, superfly        
I will give it a rest        

did you read the article about the jap paint defects though?
It has me wondering, seems each time I went to an IMPS convention the a6m5s there didnt have simulated paint chipping I guess the article explains why.

I know the field paintjobs were the worst offenders, though but I'm almost certain that the zero's were all primed when they had their original paint scheme factory applied.
the really awful looking zeros were the a6m3 and a6m2 that were repainted in the field
         

         

         

but just my opinion and everyone has theirs.

My only thought was that to much detail in some areas would interupt the illusion of the zero being a perfectly round airframe when it was not in AH.

Can we have options for gun packages of the a6m5a a6m5b which make the zero lighter by a bit?

the armament for the A6m5c was:

3 13mm: 1 in right nose, 2 in wings + 2 20mm in wings

"A6M5a:model_52"koh"....1944 Feb.
Change 20mm gun to Type99mark2model4.
Up to 400kt dive restriction speed.
A6M5b:model_52"otsu"....1944 Jun.
Change body right side 7.7mm gun to 12.7mm gun.
Bulletproof glass is fixed to the front. An automatic fire fighting device is equipped to the body tank.
A6M5c:model_52"hei"....1944 oct.

13mm guns are added in 20mm guns outside of wings. Body of 7. 7mm gun abolition.
Proof against bullets steel board addition in a cockpit seat back.
4 bomb emission installation for enemy bomber in the air to under wings or 4 rocket installation possibility"

[This message has been edited by Citabria (edited 05-18-2000).]

[Karnak]

Cit, does it seem to you that they raised the horizontal stabilizer?  I think they did...

 

Sisu

[NATEDOG]

I think you're right!  

------------------
Nathan "NATEDOG" Mathieu
Art Director
HiTech Creations
-=HELLFIRE SQUAD=-

".... And on the eighth day, God created beer. "

[Citabria]

man thats pretty