"Dinah Mite" B-17G 487th BG 839th BS

[oboe]

This is WIP for a B-17G skin of Fencer's I intend to adopt.   Real tough with all that yellow!  It changes shade significantly depending on sun angle.  Fencer's skin has red cowl rings and a red chin turret, however when I add those it makes it look toy-like somehow.   The red highlights were added near the end of the War, and I have period color photos and profiles showing the scheme without them, so I will probably leave them off, unless there are objections.

[oboe]

Here the the color reference photos for the plane and Group:

[Devil 505]

Very nice.

[Volron]

Personally I think she looks great without the red cowl/chin, and you have more sources that show without than with.    And I'm REALLY digging that yellow! 

[Greebo]

I wouldn't worry about the red cowl and chin either, looks great as it is.

[Vraciu]

Looks good to me.   Yellow is a bear.  No question.

[Fencer51]

Looks fine without the red cowlings and turret. 

However, check the tail serial area.. note no bare aluminum underneath.  It's on top of the yellow.  Is that not yellow over spray around the elevators and at the base of the fin?  And are they yellow underneath?  Too bad the turret is rotated, impossible to tell if the plane code is on the side.

Also if you are going off that color photo..  the bomb markings look red not yellow.  Notice interestingly enough, the nose art is not finished yet.. or different.. but you do have photos of her later with it finished.

Boy I miss working on skins and figuring out all the nuances.

[lyric1]

 

[FTJR]

Looks good Oboe.

[oboe]

Thanks guys.

Fencer I think you are right about the red bomb mission markers.  You could be right about the yellow overspray as well - I had put it down to color bleed on the WWII era color film, but it does look like overspray on close inspection.  I can do overspray on the stabs but there is a lot of skin stretching on the top of the rear fuselage - I discovered this when I added shadows for ambient occlusion.  I'll play it it some.

Here are a couple more shots - one does support the darker color for bomb mission markers, the other supports bare aluminum under the tail serial numbers, and some yellow paint on the fuselage under the horz stab, at the rear at least.  I think a "Z" on the chin turret is not possible to depict due to extreme stretching here.   

(click image for actual size)




I wish you would come back and help with these Flying Fort skins!   With a 64 skin limit we can probably depict every Group in the ETO and MTO!

[oboe]

Here's a close up of the nose art.

[Mister Fork]

Oboe - agree on the sediment that you nailed the yellow - hard layered colour to get right.

I think the consensus for all skins done for Aces High... it's not about being 99.99999% correct, it's about getting it to look right.

And this, well, looks alright alright alright.

[Fencer51]

I woukd not do the overspray.  No sign of it on that newest photo.. maybe some weird color photo bleed or it is a colorized photo and someone messed up.. I mean what else explains the serial number bare metal not bare metal..   they would not mess with redoing that.

Dan is the man on the forts, his tracking down a specific fort in a 40s film on an aviation forum is great reading. 

[Vraciu]

What are the dates on the photos?   That may help shed light on it.   

Could be overspray combined with reflection.   

Regardless, I would use Devil’s technique of feathering the yellow in where the tail meets the fuselage to tame that joint down a tad.

[oboe]

No help on the dates of the color photo - good idea, but it just shows the date I downloaded it, or put it in my current research file folder apparently.

I had already submitted the skin late last night with the overspray details, however based on you guy's suggestions I've reworked it quite a bit - its still there if you look but not as obvious.   I re-updated it just now.  First time I've tried updating a submitted skin, so we'll see how that feature works!

Thanks everybody for advice, assistance and comments.  Appreciated as always!