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Thanks PorcoRosso, I wouldnt take to much notice of the lighting in the ME, I dont seem to find the right setting for it, but I will, heres a couple of shots in-game , its looks a hell of alot better.

This is about it, I dont think theres much else to do for 453, anyway let me know if theres anything glaring. Il get onto the other two.

Hi PorcoRosso86, thanks mate, Il get onto those points you brought up, and yes those books are terrific and a must have if you like the Tomcat. Thanks again mate for your support and critical eye.

Backdraft - Using Federal Standard 595c Light Gull Gray FS 16440 I have given the VF-124 No 453 a good coat which resulted with the following, compared with two pictures I have posted and referenced from that great book "Colours and Markings of US Navy F-14 Tomcats by Bert Kinzey" I reckon I have got pretty close. Anyway, just a bit of tidying up stuff, center the "Gunfighters" name on the tail, darken the yellow numbers a bit, paint the tanks and launch rails etc and some smoothing etc, and she will be ready soon. It looks good in game so far, will get onto the tanks and rails etc asap And the helmets are done.

Thanks Backdraft, thanks for confirming the colours, ive been making layers of grey to fit the colour patterns they had, you will see what ive come up with next pic that I post, Glad you like the Blue, it was hard to make. Looking forward to handing them off to you.

Thanks Bananimal, your absolutely right about working with , in my case , Navy Blue. I have found that the trick is to stick within the limits of the materials values ( for this I used a "Painted metals" ) and "seemingly" the method is to use a colour a few shades lighter than what you trying to achieve. You go lighter till you find the right fit.

More progress, the lines around the cockpit are white as they should be, the pilots names are on, the pilots helmets and flying suits are partially done, need to do the Normal maps and RMs for those,to give better textures. So far so good.

The Navy Blue tail was a pain to pin down, a couple more pics to show some progress. Also playing with the RoughMet on this one.

Hi Dman, theres no secret, this is my way basically follow these steps: 1. Texture/ Draw in the tail graphics you want onto the template, it will look normal on the template. 2. Look at it in Model Viewer and using rivets or obvious points of reference guestimate where you have to move the Rudder portion to align with the tail. 3. Cut the Rudder portion and paste onto another layer and then you are ready to go. 4. Basically you are moving/ sliding the Rudder portion of the tail up and down, left and right until you get alignment. The process can be frustrating , but just be patient. 5. So do a "bold" adjustment and then look on Model Viewer and then start fine adjustments. 6. Rinse and repeat until your happy with it. 7. I try and line up the edges to the pixel, so you need to zoom in and out continuously. Thats it, no secret, just patience and technique. There are other ways but this is my way. A lot of planes in DCS are similar but have their different quirks, you just have to find them and solve them. Some planes dont have any offset distortion at all. Happy skinning.

Here a progress shot of the bird, so far, Ive been a little bit confused with the colouring of the Black tail and cockpit surround, in my research Ive found that they also had a dark blue alternative to the black or visa versa. Anyway Il probably prodce both. I also havnt been able to get any good detail pics of the canopy surround, I can just make out a whitish or washed out surround around the black, and also how far behind the canopy the black/blue continues for. Any info is welcomed.

Just a quik post, Im setting up the tail art, plenty to do, change the fonts, align the stripes, but its lookin nice, I really like this skin, it will be a gooden.

Just so you know ive started Backdraft, ive redone this from scratch still needs a few tweaks :

No probs your welcome mate !:thumbup:

As far as I can find no one has done these skins, so Il do them Backdraft.

I have fixed a couple of faults by renaming the skin and correcting spelling "Knights" not "Nights" lol, and have resized and repositioned some decals. Its been reloaded into Userfiles. Apologies for the stuff up.

Hi TexasWarbird , thanks for bringing these little mistakes to notice, for me as a skinner its good to know, however a lot of the sim developers get pretty busy and dont see or miss posts like this. I dont think you are being ignored but you can PM the developers. You just have to look through the various posts to find who to PM. What may be helpful as well would be to show the correct position and show / highlight the fault. So from me thanks for your post.

Thx PorcoRosso86, I loved doing it, there are some slight differences but thats what I love about skinning. I couldnt find any decent references to helmuts so I made those myself.

Black Knights F-14A Tomcat (VF-154 / CVW-5) at NAF Atsugi, Japan - July 2000. The skin is uploaded and available at userfiles https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/myfiles/

No probs, Ive just checked the names in the lua of each, All are correct except the Black Panther Generic skin, I have renamed it and am uploading to user files shortly. Apologies for this.

Ok mate, can you be specific as to what skins you are having problems with, Il check to make sure they are named properly.

Sorry Scotch, was afk for a day or so. have you sorted your problem ? Your drive:\DCS World or DCS World OpenBeta \CoreMods\aircraft\F-86\Liveries\f-86f sabre You should use a "Mod manager" like OVGME or JSGME it saves you problems, also read this by UBoats on how to install correctly your mods and skins etc. https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=190778

Big job on the template Helles Belles, thanks mate !

Nice skin mate !

Great work as usual Jocko, I see youve been putting in the overtime with all those great skins in Userfiles.