F14 Skinners thread (Paintkit in 1st post)

[Nealius]

What an illogical, defensive, and unneccessary response to a rational suggestion. It's the rivet-nazi's (or "rivet-counters" even though they're the same thing) who complain about every minor detail that discourage people from making liveries. Otherwise we wouldn't have issues with livery disk space usage in the first place.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Nealius

[Wingmate]

32 minutes ago, Nealius said:

What an illogical, defensive, and unneccessary response to a rational suggestion. It's the rivet-nazi's (or "rivet-counters" even though they're the same thing) who complain about every minor detail that discourage people from making liveries. Otherwise we wouldn't have issues with livery disk space usage in the first place.

 

I suggest you don't download any skins that I create then as I am doing this and custom weathering for each jet in a squadron and the file size is going to be large.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Wingmate

[near_blind]

28 minutes ago, Nealius said:

What an illogical, defensive, and unneccessary response to a rational suggestion. It's the rivet-nazi's (or "rivet-counters" even though they're the same thing) who complain about every minor detail that discourage people from making liveries. Otherwise we wouldn't have issues with livery disk space usage in the first place.

I'm not sure there's a place where rolling up, criticizing someone's work, and then calling them a nazi isn't going to illicit a defensive response. Maybe certain WW2 sim forums?

[LanceCriminal86]

1 hour ago, Nealius said:

What an illogical, defensive, and unneccessary response to a rational suggestion. It's the rivet-nazi's (or "rivet-counters" even though they're the same thing) who complain about every minor detail that discourage people from making liveries. Otherwise we wouldn't have issues with livery disk space usage in the first place.

 

Clearly the rational response is for you to go back to the first post, download the paint kit, and create the skins you desire. You can then submit them to UserFiles. You may then feel free to delete the packages for any other liveries that are released through the F-14 module, because they were made by a bunch of "rivet-nazis" which you clearly don't need or want. 

[_YaeSakura_]

Well, I guess I'll just go ahead and hang up my hobby. Appears that someone really dislikes my tendency of making full squadrons with the most accuracy I could possibly get.

[LanceCriminal86]

51 minutes ago, _YaeSakura_ said:

Well, I guess I'll just go ahead and hang up my hobby. Appears that someone really dislikes my tendency of making full squadrons with the most accuracy I could possibly get.

Yeah, imagine volunteering your time to do something like reworking panels so the core HB art guy(s) don't have to. Or reworking the default skins so they don't have to. Painting up replacement helmets so they don't have to.

That definitely sounds like nationalistic socialism to me.

[Wingmate]

At the risk of increasing my file sizes, does anyone know what is stenciled in the arrow kust below and left of the national insignia on this jet? https://www.airliners.net/photo/USA-Navy/Grumman-F-14B-Tomcat/1252169/L?qsp=eJwtjLEKwmAMhN8ls0JVcOjWLo46%2BAIhOWyh2p8kg6X03U1/3I7vu7uVZP4EvvFcCqglB5sMdKDCxm%2Bnds2C7qa7Hc9Nk8Zni35JohzoRFAC%2Bud3U9iu4FJPXjk9ZYA9aqbLNbmOXiauHwgeJ9q2HwWvLAU%3D the same arrow appears on all 142 birds on their last cruise.  Or as near as I can tell as it is only on the one side of the jet and I don't have photos of all their jets from both sides during that period.

[LanceCriminal86]

Should be "Normal Canopy Control", give me a few and I can find some pics

Basically a reminder not to use the f@*$)%& emergency canopy release, because that absolutely did happen.

 

Wording may change the further you get in years past "factory fresh" but this at least is an example from VF-201's last CAG jet as it was being flown to AMARC:

 

Edited August 8, 2022 by LanceCriminal86

[Wingmate]

Thank you very much, that arrow has proved quite elusive in my books and google searches.

[LanceCriminal86]

Just now, Wingmate said:

Thank you very much, that arrow has proved quite elusive in my books and google searches.

I had to start finding former maintainers to finally get the radar stencils along the anti-glare that was added somewhere around the -75 or 80 jets. And finding some of the factory stencils that usually were obliterated over the years and rarely covered in books. There's still a whole ton not covered in the Detail and Scale books. There were also some stencils only done on certain squadrons in certain earlier years, like VF-124, VF-14, VF-2 to name a few. Up around the forward antenna on the spine some kind of stencil was added, I think we determined it basically said "do not paint" or something along those lines. Example here from an early VF-124 jet, one of the -65GR jets:

 

 

Of course there were also the ones VF-2 had around their wing box area, with no explanation that I have ever been able to find as to why.

And some of the stencils would just be too small to even be readable. The pitot/probe stencils are already barely legible, trying to do the other factory markings you'd be fine making squiggly lines.

[WarthogOsl]

11 hours ago, LanceCriminal86 said:

I had to start finding former maintainers to finally get the radar stencils along the anti-glare that was added somewhere around the -75 or 80 jets. And finding some of the factory stencils that usually were obliterated over the years and rarely covered in books. There's still a whole ton not covered in the Detail and Scale books. There were also some stencils only done on certain squadrons in certain earlier years, like VF-124, VF-14, VF-2 to name a few. Up around the forward antenna on the spine some kind of stencil was added, I think we determined it basically said "do not paint" or something along those lines. Example here from an early VF-124 jet, one of the -65GR jets:

 

 

Of course there were also the ones VF-2 had around their wing box area, with no explanation that I have ever been able to find as to why.

And some of the stencils would just be too small to even be readable. The pitot/probe stencils are already barely legible, trying to do the other factory markings you'd be fine making squiggly lines.

If you mean the red lines, I asked Bio Baranek about those (he was in VF-2, though not in the original deployments).  He didn't know for sure either, but thought it might have something to do with the air bleed vents being able to close, so the lines were a warning to maintainers working in the area.  As far as I could find, the vents could close on some pre-production planes, but I don't think that feature ever made it to the production ones.

[SOLIDKREATE]

I'll have to bust out my 'Cruise Books and add some new photos in here from the early / mid 90's.

[Psybain]

Made a few Heritage-style WWII skins for VNAO's VF-211 based off some of the liveries that were done for the Navy's Aviation Centennial a few years ago.

[LanceCriminal86]

14 hours ago, Psybain said:

Made a few Heritage-style WWII skins for VNAO's VF-211 based off some of the liveries that were done for the Navy's Aviation Centennial a few years ago.

I did very similar ones that I've never released. Once some of these historic ones are done I want to resume working on my fictional CoNA skins for each squadron.

[Mach3DS]

The attention to detail (and the smallest details) is what makes Heatblur products so attractive IMO.  So naturally, they attract like-minded individuals.  It's not surprising to me at all.  While leaving out certain details to incoroporate a generic global feel might seem like a no brainer to some, to the ones who are detail oriented, it's like an "unflyable" situation.  LOL.  They know something is missing and they want to make it as authentic as they can.  

As someone who makes liveries and does so with much research and collaboration with others to get the most information about a livery -  I try to make something as authentic as I can.  Which means for me, I'd rather not associate my name with anything other than what I feel is my best effort.  So, my guess is that is how the other "rivet counters" feel as well.  It's a "take pride in our work" thing.  Not a "we want to be difficult" thing.  

[Psybain]

51 minutes ago, LanceCriminal86 said:

I did very similar ones that I've never released. Once some of these historic ones are done I want to resume working on my fictional CoNA skins for each squadron.

It was a blast doing them. If you need any help with resources for paint colors or whatever just hit me up.

 

I miss my Lance Criminal of Marines shirt, I need to find out where I put it. That was the one bummer about getting promoted to Cpl, I couldn't wear it under my cammies anymore lol.

[LanceCriminal86]

5 minutes ago, Psybain said:

It was a blast doing them. If you need any help with resources for paint colors or whatever just hit me up.

 

I miss my Lance Criminal of Marines shirt, I need to find out where I put it. That was the one bummer about getting promoted to Cpl, I couldn't wear it under my cammies anymore lol.

Same, I picked up mostly by time in grade but then 100 extra points because special duty or something, which blew me way over the cutting score. Always an LC at heart though.

As to colors/resources I had some different shades I used, maybe your saturation or reshade is amped up but the intensity of the colors looked way more vibrant than what I used. The early war blue-gray is pretty tough to pin down as there's some resources making it more blue and others more gray. And there may have been different shades for Atlantic vs Pacific there in '42-'43. 

 

Then there were the Korea ones, still need to revise them and rework stencils, the base color, and roughmets all over again. The late WW2 and Korea blue is really hard to nail down as well because sometimes it looks almost black, but it also faded into a more blue-blue, and some shades also show it with a blue-green tint after they revised it following WW2 to reduce the color fading.

[Psybain]

Yeah, someone in one of the fb SNCO groups said I had the soul of a LCpl after one of my comments one time lol.

 

I think I had reshade on for all of those. Attached is a screenshot with it turned off.

For the early war one I tried using this prowler pic as my reference for the shade: 

[pantasauras]

Hey! I got a request for any experienced skinners out there! 
I was wondering if I could commission someone to make some Tomcat skins for my virtual squadron I am running?
If you're interested details/pay could be discussed on Discord, here is my Discord tag: j0sh#0999 

[SOLIDKREATE]

Are you a fellow Gypsy? I was there 94-98.

[pantasauras]

On 8/25/2022 at 8:40 PM, SOLIDKREATE said:

Are you a fellow Gypsy? I was there 94-98.

I am not unfortunately, just simulate a VF-32 group in DCS
That's really cool that you're a former Gypsy tho, if you were 94-98 does that mean you were in both A and B model? They transitioned in 97 iirc right?

[9thHunt]

hey, for those of us who can't shell out $240 a year for the full version of Photoshop, how do we get the files to work in Photoshop Elements?

When I open the .PSDs everything is locked from editing and stuck in layer groups that I can't open.

 

[Uxi]

Some people were using GIMP, which is free...

[_YaeSakura_]

5 hours ago, 9thHunt said:

hey, for those of us who can't shell out $240 a year for the full version of Photoshop, how do we get the files to work in Photoshop Elements?

When I open the .PSDs everything is locked from editing and stuck in layer groups that I can't open.

 

One thing I had to do is delete all existing squadron layer groups from the default HB Tomcat template. It's handy that you can use all the existing liveries as reference on the texture, but unless if your computer has pretty high-end parts, GIMP will struggle at times to do what you want it to. And honestly, using GIMP isn't really a limitation. All my stuff has been made using GIMP 2.10.14.

[SOLIDKREATE]

On 8/27/2022 at 9:47 AM, pantasauras said:

I am not unfortunately, just simulate a VF-32 group in DCS
That's really cool that you're a former Gypsy tho, if you were 94-98 does that mean you were in both A and B model? They transitioned in 97 iirc right?

Yes, the B's came in the Spring on '98. There were such a welcome addition to the squadron. Especially being a maintainer like myself. I'm sure the PW-414A was a good motor for it's time but the GE motors were so much better. We have a pilot C/S Kong say it was like going from a VW Beetle to a Ferrari. I think the only things I regularly changed were the oil switch and an aft fuel control. The aft fuel control was just a computer with 2 cannon plugs and 4 fasteners. The aft fuel control on a A model was about 40 spider lines and a bunch of hard to reach fasteners.