P3DV4 More wing work...Showing you what it takes.

[Steve Dra 7,588]

Continuing work on the wing...AA (at least on the specific airframe I'm painting) does not have the red "No Step Beyond the Line" paint on her wings...so, I should just use the eraser to take it off right?  Oh....let me show you what you have to do....

First, understanding how your paint tools work is crucial to make it look right and not go insane trying to get it right because you don't know what kind of tools your paint program offers you, hehe.

Lets just erase the line using the eraser tool:

Below is Paintshop Pro (sorry all you Photoshop users, it's just as good and...err.. a magnitude less expensive).  You'll see I'm performing these edits on the Base Layer.  Not a good strategy if you've done this long enough to know that you will mess up, and if it's already auto-saved, you'll need to start over from scratch..that will start you into your first session of hair pulling...LOL.
One tip for any aspiring painter:  Before working on any layer, duplicate it and turn off the original layer.  This way if you royally mess up (which everybody does), you can erase the copied layer and you'll still have your original.

Oooooh....that didn't turn out right just erasing the line! 

Let's try one of my favorite brushes, the PUSH brush (an amazing tool and one many photo-retouch experts use to remove blemishes from supermodels)

Again, not a good outcome...however I did use it irresponsibly and could do a decent job with it if I worked loooong and hard...but it would be working harder, not smarter.

The tool that gets the job done efficiently and correctly is the CLONE brush.  The result speaks for itself.
Also, you see I've created a duplicate layer, named it "No Red Stripes"...so when I mess up I can easily start again..also...if I do a paint that needs those red lines, I just turn off the layer and I have the original ready in a snap. 

You can see the outcome is exactly what I was going for, and it looks like the red stripes were never there.  This is a very simplified example and explanation, there was a lot of highly detailed work to get it to look that good.  Using the Clone brush, there is an infinite number of settings you can use to get the effect you're looking for, and its just a matter of knowing the capability of your painting app and it's many, exquisite tools.

I can tell you though...seeing the outcome of your hard work in the sim for the 1st time is a rush that is just as large as the one you get when you stick a landing, or successfully complete a really hard approach is lousy weather, seeing the lead-on strobe lights at the end of the runway in the center of your windscreen when you breakout of the overcast a few feet below the cloud base. 

Painting can be a hobby all unto itself, and when you do it long enough, you start to see that you've gained some skills that will benefit you in the real world if you ever chose a career in photography and/or supermodel touch-ups .   (Still waiting for that callback from Christie Brinkley, Elle McPhearson, etc to hire me to do their photo touch-up work..LOL)

Edited March 10, 2018 by Steve Dra

[psbrandenburg 33]

Outstanding work as usual.  Elle said this morning that she's busy, but will call you when she has the time..  :)

 

-Scott Brandenburg.

[Steve Dra 7,588]

42 minutes ago, psbrandenburg said:

Outstanding work as usual.  Elle said this morning that she's busy, but will call you when she has the time..  :)

 

-Scott Brandenburg.

Thanks Scott....any word from Christie? 

I still have some pics of your LTU 767 on the LDS model floating around somewhere when I was teaching you how to paint.   Man that was at least a century ago!

So the important question when I start my Delta paint...do they have the red stripe on their wings?

Edited March 10, 2018 by Steve Dra

[psbrandenburg 33]

2 hours ago, Steve Dra said:

Thanks Scott....any word from Christie? 

I still have some pics of your LTU 767 on the LDS model floating around somewhere when I was teaching you how to paint.   Man that was at least a century ago!

So the important question when I start my Delta paint...do they have the red stripe on their wings?

Christie isn't returning my calls.  Cindy said she's a bit of a snob.  

 

Nope, the DL machines didn't have red stripes.  One thing they did have, in the old/original livery, was a difference in how the white paint died out at the nose.  (All fleet types had the same 'evolution')  Originally, the white below the blue cheatline would extend around and under the nose just forward of the NLG doors.  Later, to save 2-3 lb of paint, the white would taper off or die out at the base of the black in the radome/nose.  A subtle difference, but very noticeable when they came out of paint after having that reduction - back in the days when the fleet was only painted in ATL. 

N905DL lost the "Wally Bird" decal (only worn on the left) sometime in the mid 90's.  Then there were the olympic stickers, two styles - the originals were worn only on the engines (I have a complete unused sticker for an RB-211), then the later ones were worn on the fuselages.  We found that skydrol and oil did funny things to the decals..

Sorry - I don't know how to attach pics.  And, IMO, N995DL looked best in the old/original livery..  

 

-Scott Brandenburg.

 

[Patco Lch 1,465]

Don't understand anything about the art of repaint or scenery making but I certainly appreciate you guys that do and share with the rest of us.

[Steve Dra 7,588]

42 minutes ago, psbrandenburg said:

Cindy said she's a bit of a snob

Oh...don't even get me started about Cindy.  I'm convinced she is an alien sent down to earth to lull us into some kind of trance where they'll mind control us to take over our planet.  One little, subtle feature they forgot to incorporate into their Cindy Cyborg is that after 30 years she "should" start to show her age a bit.  Looking at recent pics, its easy to tell the aliens either forgot to add that aging feature or its seriously malfunctioning!  If you saw the movie Terminator Genesis, you can see they remembered to incorporate that into the movie when he shows up years later and he's actually aged. 

I bet there is an alien engineer who was her design team that did a face palm after seeing that movie and saying "Arrrrgh...I can't believe we forgot to add that to Cindy!...then again we never expected her model to last so long." 

Oh and about all that detailed Delta livery info...who cares? You mentioned Cindy and all thoughts of painting flew out the door. 
(just kidding of course...thanks for the info and you'll be consulted when I start my Delta paint.)

[Stuart Savage 0]

Ha HA...touch up...You just wanna touch em)))

[Steve Dra 7,588]

4 hours ago, Stuart Savage said:

Ha HA...touch up...You just wanna touch em)))

I'm busted!  Dang you're on to me Stuart!  "Hold on Cindy....I just need to push on that freckle right there to see how it looks when dimpled...in case we need to airbrush that as a feature to your already perfect features." 

Wait....we'rent we talking about planes a minute ago? LOL