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VMFA-321 Hell's Angels Inbound!


Bananimal

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So I decided to take a week or two away from painting VFA-204 birds. Namely because I'm wanting to fly something a little different. For those that are awaiting the VFA-204 CoNA, CAG and Line birds, they will be coming as soon as I wrap up this pack and patch the first two packs I released with fixes that I discovered while working the VFA-204 c.2017 pack.

 

So, I just cranked this bad boy out today. These take nowhere near as long as the camo schemes, which was burining me out.

 

I've got another CAG bird, CO bird, Ex-VFA-204 401 (Booger) that was transitioned to VMFA-321, and about 5 line birds to do for this pack. I'm figuring a week to a week and a half. Not bad considering it took me longer than that to paint just one of the 24 VFA-204 camo birds I recently released. :cry:

 

The remaining CAG, CO and line birds will be circa 2004. I believe the year that VMFA-321 was decommissioned.

 

This bird is the CAG circa 1998 as well as will be the Ex-VFA-204 401 Booger bird. They will be included as the bonus aircraft for the pack. :thumbup:

 

This one is still a work in progress, but just about done.

 

UPDATE: Packs are now available for download.

 

DOWNLOAD PACK 1 HERE

DOWNLOAD PACK 2 HERE

DOWNLOAD PACK 3 HERE

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Edited by Bananimal

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After River Rattlers I opened this took one look at the picture & thought I know who this guy is

 

 

Your skinning skills are just stunning & I want to thank you for River Rattlers now you just spoiling us all

 

 

Superlatives do you no justice sir

 

 

John

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After River Rattlers I opened this took one look at the picture & thought I know who this guy is

 

 

Your skinning skills are just stunning & I want to thank you for River Rattlers now you just spoiling us all

 

 

Superlatives do you no justice sir

 

 

John

 

If you like this one, wait until you see the one I'm going to be starting today after work. I'm excited to get started on it. :P

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Thanks. That is an early picture of that bird. It looks much better now. I am just about finsihed 01 circa 2004. It was painted up as a gate guard as the squadron was being decommed and sent to Quantico. At least that's what I was told. It looks stunning. I just have to resize the VMFA-321 fonts on the side (the hardest part to align) of the aircraft and I'll post some pics. Being that is was painted as a gate guard, it will have zero weathering as in the pics. I'm also doing the near black version with bigger stars on the dorsal. That one will be beaten on a little bit.


Edited by Bananimal

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T'was a productive weekend. Got to hunker down with the VMFA-321 repaints I'm working on.

 

Here's the gate guard version of 01. They painted it up to celebrate 61 years of service before being decommissioned. Pristine as in the photos, without a scratch on her. Guys, this thing is gorgeous in the sim.:thumbup:

 

As with the VFA-204 packs I released, just about all the decals on these birds are created by me. I think the Decade of Decadence patch on the intake of the other 01 bird was lifted off of a picture. All the rest were lifted off of photographs to get the shape and the new shapes were created to create a clean decal. They came out great.

 

One of the hardest things to deal with when painting is finding the correct font. Took about 6 hours of hunting to find the right font for both 401 birds that will be in the pack. But I nailed it! :pilotfly:

 

To me, the thing that makes repaints convincing is the correct colors, the size, shape and color of the fonts as well as other stencils on the aircraft. Get any of these wrong and the repaint will look like a toy in the sim. Get it right and you get this.......... :D


Edited by Bananimal

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And here's the 2004 variant of 01. One's beat up a bit. The good news is, I'm including a factory fresh version as well. The paint scheme looks so good on the F-18, I had to release an un-weathered version as well. It was screaming for it.

 

Just a few more things to tidy up and these two are done.

 

I'm working on correcting the roughmets for the aircraft to eliminate the pylon dirt under the wings. Both files come in at 26 MB, so I cannot include them in the pack. I'll create another download for these roughmets for those that want to use them to get rid of the pylon dirt. I can't believe ED put that on the roughmets.

 

The blue on this aircraft was a mistake by the painters. It was supposed to be the color of the gate guard version. Instead, it came out almost black. It's deep navy (midnight) blue. I think I nailed it. It looks black except where the light glints off of it. Stunning in the sim. ED really nailed the lighting engine in the game. Combined with Reshade's HDR, this is what you get.


Edited by Bananimal

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I've got the roughmet for the underneath of the wings corrected, still working on the belly pylon marks. I removed them on the roughmet, but the shape of the pylon still exists. Still trying to find out the cause on that. The plane looks so much better without the pylon shadows on it. The good news is, this mod will fix all installed F-18 skins the user has. Not just mine. So, it's worth getting done.

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  • 2 weeks later...

They are just about ready, folks! Testing and then I'll zip it up to see how big the package is. If it is under 300 MBs then I'm going to paint a few more.

 

This package is hella cool. Right now there are 17 skins in the pack. There are five custom tanks with custom graphics I created as seen in photos. Three of them revolve around the World Trade Center terrorist event. I hope you guys like them. Took all day to get them right.

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OK, so the pack comes in just under 400MB, which means I have to split it before uploading it. Since I have to split it anyway, I'm going to paint a few more birds from 1998. I was wanting to do them , but was not planning on it unless I was way under 300MB. A few more days, gents. Maybe even later this afternoon and they'll be ready. For those that are waiting on the 90s VFA-204 birds. Sorry I got so head down on VMFA-321. The thing is, The paints are so unique, I had to dive in on them. I wasn't expecting to find so many neat variations of the squadron. So, being as I am, I began the process of nailing them down for skins. I think you'll like them.


Edited by Bananimal

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