Some Recent and Not so Recent Skins

[_AH_Gonzo]

Due to the relative time difference I suffer by being Europe I tend to get lots of free time when the rest of you guys aren't around. In an effort to keep myself occupied, (And out of my wife's hair!) I lock myself away and skin aircraft.

For the most part I try and make the aircraft as accurate as possible while still giving them my personal feel and lots of wear and tear.

Here's some of my latest:

Here's a P-40 Field Mod that I created for the Stalingrad Battle.



One aircraft that we hardly operate but I believe is one of the best looking aircraft of WWII is the Fw-190.





Another aircraft that I really like for its looks has to be the Tempest. So far I've done up 3 different skins for the type; Standard RAF style scheme that most of you have already seen and the two examples below.

Post War Metal Finish:





Special winter scheme with white paint crudely sprayed over the standard RAF scheme.



Here's a Mk.Vb Spitfire in the colour scheme used when the type operated from Malta in 1943.



Another Mk.V Spit in standard RAF markings with checkered nose and advertising the best online squadron to fly the virtual skies. ;)





Now a Mk.VIII in the standard RAF camo of the day. This is still a work in progress. While the over all scheme is complete, I still need to add personalized markings.



One of the easiest aircraft to skin in IL2 has to be the Bf-109. Here's one that I painted up for the Battle of the Bulge. This scheme is based on Italian 109's during 1944.



The same skin again but with black and white tiger skin over its camo.



Something that I think looks great on WWII aircraft is modern style camo patterns. Here's a P-51 in a modern day F-16 style pain scheme.



For the up coming Kursk battle I've been studying some of the Russian units that operated in the theatre and have tried to recreate some of the schemes they employed.

Here's a La-5 and La-5FN.





Here's a Yak-9T.







One project that I have yet to complete is the Mossie. Here's how it's looking so far. Hopefully with a little time I'll be able to complete all of the finishing touches on it.

[_AH_Johnny]

Thanks for the viewing...they look great

[_AH_DarkWolf]

 I don't do much skinning, I prefer to choose from a variety of historical skins I've downloaded. But these are the few I've done.

My Aussie Heroes campaign skins. I kinda like variety so I have basically the same markings over 3 different camo patterns. The camo patterns were taken from blanks of |450|vex's skins.




This aircraft is a 442 squadron RCAF bird. I used the yellow cowl and wing markings from one of jocko417's skins from the same squadron. jocko417 has done alot of cool RCAF stuff, including a snotload of skins for the Mk.VIII spit.



There is an airworthy mustang in Ottawa that is painted with these markings.



And of course I could'nt resist making a personalized skin in this scheme.



This last one is a cut and paste job of various elements from several of RONNCO's skins. I think RONNCO is pretty much the king of USN skins, his latest works are fantastic.



DW

[_AH_DarkWolf]

  This is my latest creation, named in honor of the clown himself of course!



DW

[_AH_Gonzo]

 ::-

I love it!!!

[_AH_Rumely]

For some reason I o not see the last skins that were posted even after I refreshed the page.

[_AH_DarkWolf]

I finished up work on my Hurri IIcs,



and messed about with some Mk.VIII spits.



DW

[_AH_DarkWolf]

Well when you use layered templates Spar, the work is done for you as far as the rivets etc. Basically they are files with layers and layers of images in them. Think of it like those clear transparencies you would use on an overhead projector. One transparency has the panel lines, one has the rivets, one has the exhaust staining, one has paint chipping etc etc. On the bottom are things like the basic paint scheme or camo pattern, national insignia and markings etc. When the other layers are on top, they superimpose the detail on textures beneath them.

Let me try and illustrate :

Here we have the camo pattern and most of the markings by themselves with no detail layers on top



Where as here we have all the the detail and weathering layers on top as well as the mechanical bits and peices of the internal structure. You can see how the panel lines and rivets and weathering etc have been superimposed over the plain markings giving them the look of being painted on the panels of the aircraft.



It's all a matter of adding your markings and manipulating the layers. Then you export a copy and use a program to convert the image into a 256 color file the game can read.

Some aircraft are harder than others to skin. Some actually distort the skin when they apply it to the 3D model, so parts of the skin itself have to be a little warped to look right on the aircraft. Others apply the textures in funny ways, forcing you to add the markings upsidedown and backwards on the skin to make them show the right way on the aircraft. It also depends on the quality of the template, some are a total cinch to use and require little manipulation. Others can seem like a nightmare to try and make sense of.

DW

[_AH_Gonzo]

Great little walk through on what Templates are and how to use them DW!

Great skins by the way too bud! I love the Pacific Hurricane and Spitfire.

[_AH_DarkWolf]

Modifying existing skins can be tough. Very hard to remove something without destroying detail or shading, and equally hard to apply the proper detail and shading to anything new you add. Thats what makes the templates so great, you add whatever you want and drag the layer to the right point and it's all done for you. And if you want to change things later on, it's as simple as removing the previous marking and adding the new one in the template.

DW

[_AH_Stiffy]

hey Spar,
i have psp 7 and if you want to do a walk-thru in skinning we can hit comms and i can show you a few tricks
im not great at skinning but i think i can teach you want your wanting to do

as long as you dont want to do the millions of rivits and such

[_AH_Gonzo]

As an aside, as I waddled out of the hospital a shapely gal said to me, "That looks like it hurts."  I replied that the doc said the shark bite wound would heal over time.  I was lying of course -- no shark was ever close to me on the golf course -- but, what the heck, I may have gotten some "sympathy."

LMAO!!!

Spar, if I can be of any help in getting you skinning I'd be more than happy also. Should we meet up in Hyper Lobby during a quiet moment, I'll try and give you some tips.

[_AH_DarkWolf]

I was working on some seafires the other day. I think the pacific camo with the european roundels looks pretty cool.



DW

[_AH_DarkWolf]

After noticing the Spit Mk.VIII and Seafire skins have essentially the same layout as the Spit Vc, I started thinking maybe I could do something with that. I had to copy some exaust stubs over from another skin and create side panels for the big air filter myself, one for each of the underside camos, but it works. The roundels I use are colored to be close to jocko417's work and for many of these skins I sampled the hues from his malta Spit Vcs to color the camo. I used his skins as a guide for markings on some of them too, so in the end they look very similar to his work. I hope he does'nt mind...

The top one is a north africa scheme and the others are based on malta style schemes.



DW

[_AH_Gonzo]

Great stuff DW!

I like DW-S with the replaced rudder.