VFMA-115 "Silver Eagles" CAG F/A-18++

[BoNidle]

Should read "VMFA" not "VFMA". Im tired.

 

 

Bit the bullet and built the tail art for what must be one of the coolest looking CAG Hornets ever IMHO.

 

 

If anyone knows the crew names that should be on the nose wheel doors for this aircraft I'd appreciate the info and will update the skin later.

 

 

I found various incarnations onf this design whilst researching. Some had the anti glare panel stopping at the guns, later photos showed it had been extended onto the nose. Some photos showed this aircraft without the distinguishing C type "blisters on the spine whilst later ones showed they had been added. There were several designs applied to the airbrake panel over time. I have chose the "Silver Eagles" emblem.

 

 

Yes, the tail art was a pain, but Im quite pleased with the result.

 

 

 

Just uploaded it to User Files and will post the link when its up.

 

 

Edited July 19, 2018 by BoNidle

[uscstaylor]

Nice Work

[TigersharkBAS]

Drawn by hand?

[BoNidle]

Created in Paint Shop Pro 2018. Drawn, shaded, stars individually sized, angled and distorted by me.

 

Once the flat red and blue design was drawn to my satisfaction, (a task in itself due to the tails ecm and light housings requiring the edges of the red be individually aligned, plus the rudder gap to bridge which misaligns designs considerably), I created a star and then resized and distorted each one to try and match the real design. I then copied and pasted the finished group onto the other tails.

 

Shading was done by using the airbrush tool to spray areas of black and white along the areas where the design appears to bulge and dip. This was then Gaussian blurred and the transparency reduced to give the effect of highlight and shadow.

 

Originally the blue was lighter making the dark shadow more pronounced, but this was not the right shade so although the effect looked good it wasn't accurate so I had to adjust the shade and lightness of the cyan in the blue to make it darker. Unfortunately this lost some of the shadow effect in the blue areas but had to be done.

 

It was a challenge but I think it worked.

Edited July 22, 2018 by BoNidle

[TigersharkBAS]

real nice

[BoNidle]

Thanks.

 

 

If I can find out the names of the ground crew I'll amend the skin. I have the other info its just their names. Both are SSGT and one is from Fort Walton Beach FL and I think his name is "Stadon", while the other is New Orleans, LA but his name is pretty long and I cannot work out what it is from the images I have.

 

There are a few more corrections to do now that I've studied it a bit more:

I think some of the stars are still slightly too big, the flap numbers too small and the unit number on the side of the fuselage too big.

 

So they may be fixed in the fuuture but I'll do it all at the same time.

[BoNidle]

I have now updated this skin to include the name of one of the ground crew on the port nose gear door.

I also corrected a few things including the fact that I put the underwing insignia under the wrong wing, I dont know how I missed that!

[Backy 51]

BADASS!

[Quae Tinnungulus]

that's very nice

[drillin]

Very nice dude! we have been using the old version of the 115 CAG bird in our wing, this looks great!