26.03.2015, 23:16
Here's my four pennorth..
My standard approach to painting aircraft is to develop the 'base' in blue or grey, as required, and then finish the top surfaces. It's not a detail-heavy approach because my preferred style of skin-painting is more subtle and impressionistic- erring towards a persuasive use of colour and a deft touch with camouflaging. You can't see all the rivets in a photo ! : )
Here's how to rustle up a quick 'base' texture, which is the 'undercoat', so to speak...
(1) Look at the 'void' texture- is it just lines? If so, oops. Or., conversely, now's your chance to improve on that.
(2) If you are working on the FW189, JU88, say, go for a 2048 skin. Detail becomes pixelated close-up on the original texture size.
(3) Obtain a line drawing for the aircraft in question (Google) and the colour palette used by that air-force. German blue is different to Russian, etc.
(4) White-out over ONE of each structure that is repeated, ie one upper wing, one lower, etc. Go over the edges. The He111 exemplifies why this matters.
(5) Using a point-to-point tool selection, copy a bit of the line-drawing, for example, a wing. Open a new layer at 80+% on your 'void'.
(6) Adjust the size of the line-drawing to fit over the corresponding part of the void. Click to fix it in place.
(7) Use magic wand to delete the original background of the line-drawing. You now have a plain white wing on the background layer and panel lines on Layer 1. Colour in the wing to the relevant shade of blue or grey as per the underside of the plane. (I will call this the 'base' colour from here on in.)
(8) Now open a new Layer, at 100%. Make a dot from the pen tool in a darkish grey (but not too dark) at size 3. Zoom into it. Make another dot in white in the very top right, size 1.
(9) That is a rivet.
(10) Assemble the rivets in the relevant places, generally on the panel lines. Copy and paste. Adjust the lightness so the rivets are 'just' visible.
(11) Rotation tends to blur out the rivets so form diagonal lines using short straight runs of 2-3 rivets at a time, offset to follow the diagonal.
(12) Now go to the layer with the line drawing on it and increase the colour and contrast, you should get much finer line, with a halo of white feedback about it.
(13) With the colour-changer tool, change the white feedback to the base colour. Darken the remaining line and use the soften tool to smooth it out.
(14) You now have a wing with rivets and panel lines. Merge layers.
(15) Create a new layer, at about 70% transparency. Overspray with base colour, at about 60% opacity. Darken.
(16) Scratch over this layer with the eraser tool, using a progressively smaller and more opaque setting. Run over this with the soften tool.
(17) Merge layers, copy and paste to the other wing.
(18) Airlerons and other features can be approximated by forming their shape using the point-to-point tool, spray in and then the inner bevel and blur can be used in combination to form shadows and highlights.
(19) The rest of the aircraft can be finished similarly.
You now have the basic 'undercoat' for the aircraft. I'll check back in a while to see if you have read this and have any feedback. If so, we'll progress onto doing the upper surfaces.
Bye For Now
BGN : )
My standard approach to painting aircraft is to develop the 'base' in blue or grey, as required, and then finish the top surfaces. It's not a detail-heavy approach because my preferred style of skin-painting is more subtle and impressionistic- erring towards a persuasive use of colour and a deft touch with camouflaging. You can't see all the rivets in a photo ! : )
Here's how to rustle up a quick 'base' texture, which is the 'undercoat', so to speak...
(1) Look at the 'void' texture- is it just lines? If so, oops. Or., conversely, now's your chance to improve on that.
(2) If you are working on the FW189, JU88, say, go for a 2048 skin. Detail becomes pixelated close-up on the original texture size.
(3) Obtain a line drawing for the aircraft in question (Google) and the colour palette used by that air-force. German blue is different to Russian, etc.
(4) White-out over ONE of each structure that is repeated, ie one upper wing, one lower, etc. Go over the edges. The He111 exemplifies why this matters.
(5) Using a point-to-point tool selection, copy a bit of the line-drawing, for example, a wing. Open a new layer at 80+% on your 'void'.
(6) Adjust the size of the line-drawing to fit over the corresponding part of the void. Click to fix it in place.
(7) Use magic wand to delete the original background of the line-drawing. You now have a plain white wing on the background layer and panel lines on Layer 1. Colour in the wing to the relevant shade of blue or grey as per the underside of the plane. (I will call this the 'base' colour from here on in.)
(8) Now open a new Layer, at 100%. Make a dot from the pen tool in a darkish grey (but not too dark) at size 3. Zoom into it. Make another dot in white in the very top right, size 1.
(9) That is a rivet.
(10) Assemble the rivets in the relevant places, generally on the panel lines. Copy and paste. Adjust the lightness so the rivets are 'just' visible.
(11) Rotation tends to blur out the rivets so form diagonal lines using short straight runs of 2-3 rivets at a time, offset to follow the diagonal.
(12) Now go to the layer with the line drawing on it and increase the colour and contrast, you should get much finer line, with a halo of white feedback about it.
(13) With the colour-changer tool, change the white feedback to the base colour. Darken the remaining line and use the soften tool to smooth it out.
(14) You now have a wing with rivets and panel lines. Merge layers.
(15) Create a new layer, at about 70% transparency. Overspray with base colour, at about 60% opacity. Darken.
(16) Scratch over this layer with the eraser tool, using a progressively smaller and more opaque setting. Run over this with the soften tool.
(17) Merge layers, copy and paste to the other wing.
(18) Airlerons and other features can be approximated by forming their shape using the point-to-point tool, spray in and then the inner bevel and blur can be used in combination to form shadows and highlights.
(19) The rest of the aircraft can be finished similarly.
You now have the basic 'undercoat' for the aircraft. I'll check back in a while to see if you have read this and have any feedback. If so, we'll progress onto doing the upper surfaces.
Bye For Now
BGN : )