F14 Skinners thread (Paintkit in 1st post)

[wildw1ng]

F-14B - Marinefliegergeschwader 1

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3314956/

 

[=Skywarp=]

On 1/20/2021 at 8:28 AM, sa63114200 said:

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3314432/

 

 

 

Sir, did you delete it from ED files? Link is not avaliable anymore...

Edited February 9, 2021 by =Skywarp=

[ben_der]

 

 

 

 

VF-14 Tophatters, AJ 200, BuNo 162698, early 2001

 

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3306230/

 

[Skysurfer]

As always, awesome livery man!

[LanceCriminal86]

Couple notes for folks doing A model skins:

 

- The turbine stripes along the rear fuselage are in a different location vs the B, and need to be shifted to behind the rear slime strips along the vertical bulkhead panel. Varies between jets/squadrons but this general location:

 

 

- Fire punch-in stencils need to shift downwards to right about on the top edge of the NACA duct. You'll have to make adjustments in the weathering, base, component layers of diffuse and of course the roughmet & normal maps but it's a worthwhile touch.

 

- Intake warning stencils: Typically the As seemed to have a different style of stencil from the default Heatblur ones, with a narrower angle, different starting points, and not coming up as high on the intakes. They're a PITA to get right, but some strategic use of the line tool and making reference points from photos and in the model viewer can get you really close. I've been using a 40px line I believe on mine.

 

Note the distance from the top of the intake to the stencil, how it relates to the landing gear door angle as well:

 

Versus some of the stencils on B models:

 

 

And D stencils because at least one D was scanned, and its stencils may have been used as the basis for our B:

 

 

 

That all's not including the panels and bits that need to be deleted from the roughmet/normal/diffuse but working on trying to get some of that done for updated templates and such. Trying to see if someone can get really good pictures of the underside of a specific engine panel that has to be modified from B to A. A couple of us did it by hand but hoping to get some better reference material that could be used for a permanent solution.

 

There's a few tweaks that can be done to the B as well to remove D and A bits from it. At this point I have like 3 separate copies of the template and now 30-40 gigs of my hard drives are gone trying to keep all the changes and skins separated.

[ben_der]

 

Camelot 201 - AJ201 - VF14 Tophatters - BuNo 159848 around 1997

This Tomcat resides at the Tillamook Air Museum in Tillamook, Oregon.

 

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3306713/


@LanceCriminal86
Thanks buddy for pointing these out. Totally forgot to adjust the rear stripes on AJ200.

Edited February 15, 2021 by VFlip

[LanceCriminal86]

On 2/15/2021 at 6:12 AM, VFlip said:

 

Camelot 201 - AJ201 - VF14 Tophatters - BuNo 159848 around 1997

This Tomcat resides at the Tillamook Air Museum in Tillamook, Oregon.

 

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3306713/


@LanceCriminal86
Thanks buddy for pointing these out. Totally forgot to adjust the rear stripes on AJ200.

 

 

If you're on the Livery Art Group shoot me a message, we got a log of good Tomcat stuff to share like stencils and layers.

 

Hopefully with some pics of the Pima F-14 we can finalize the areas under the nacelles for the A and get some permanent -A textures sent through the pipe.

 

You can do the changes yourself, it takes a little work but the final textures shouldn't change a ton.

[CheckGear]

 

LOL The pilot and RIO looking sideways out at the camera!

[Uxi]

On 12/3/2020 at 12:38 PM, Swordsman422 said:

Work continues with the base paint variations:

In the background, the overall medium grey to be used by 202 and 210. The midground is the overall light ghost grey for 200, 203, and 204. Finally, in the foreground is the half-painted look of 201.

 

 

Next is a comparison shot between two TPS variations. In the foreground is the standard TPS used by 207 and 212. 207 will also have a scroll of Jolly Rogers history on the tail. In the background is the TPS variation used by 211 and 213, which differs by lacking the medium grey upper surface on the nose and canopy.

 

I have more stencils and placards to place, then modex numbers and bunos for all aircraft.

 

Any update on this?

[Swordsman422]

Mostly done, but real life's caught up with me in the last couple months and finding spare time to completely polish right now is kinda hard. I haven't abandoned them. They're coming.

[CheckGear]

Seeing a lot of fictional skins out there. Anyone still interested in doing real-life skins? I'd like to see this for the F-14A:

VF-213 in the 1990s, one of my favorites.

Edited February 22, 2021 by CheckGear

[LanceCriminal86]

It didn't make the cut, but still working on the VF-201 1998 CAG jet and now some line jet skins. I found the RIO of the jet from the below photo, and have been working on AF112 to represent her in the last year of VF-201's Tomcat era. Waiting to hear about stencils and such, but got info that she had red striped tails. Apparently 201 had a smattering of different tails that last year.

 

 

 

Making changes to the TPS paint colors, notably turning off some adjustment layers in the template. This seems to get really close to later photos of VF-31's cats with modern cameras, fresh paint samples, and when you mess with lighting and account for paint fade as well as camera film from the 90s, seems to replicate the general colors of TPS IMO a bit more accurately. In bright light it washes the contrast out almost, and in the shade you get a striking contrast. This is before I got the corrections from the RIO.

 

 

 

 

A lineup of VF-201's cats in 1998, their final year.

 

 

After I got the info that they had the older style red tail stripes on 112

[Skysurfer]

Great job on these!

[Tomcatter87]

I finished a VF-213 Black Lions bird from the early 80s. Featuring custom drop tanks and correct bureau number.
Since it was hard to find any Hi-Res pictures of the old school lion, I bought some scale modelling decals to build my tail design on. Thanks to Reflected Simulations for allowing me to use one of his liveries as a base for that livery. The bird is great company for Reflected's Aarkvaard-Tomcats.

Just have to finish the pilot's helmets, then I can upload it.

[ShinyMikey]

3 hours ago, Tomcatter87 said:

I finished a VF-213 Black Lions bird from the early 80s. Featuring custom drop tanks and correct bureau number.
Since it was hard to find any Hi-Res pictures of the old school lion, I bought some scale modelling decals to build my tail design on. Thanks to Reflected Simulations for allowing me to use one of his liveries as a base for that livery. The bird is great company for Reflected's Aarkvaard-Tomcats.

Just have to finish the pilot's helmets, then I can upload it.

 

 

Looks great! Can't wait to download it. Thanks for your time and work.

[Tomcatter87]

Regarding the helmet... I found some nice photos of helmets from that era. Does anyone know what font I might use for the pilot's nickname (some samples also had "VF-213" instead of the callsign)?

 

[prccowboy]

32 minutes ago, Tomcatter87 said:

Does anyone know what font I might use for the pilot's nickname

If you have a fairly good photo, you can match the font or find a decent alternative with an online font identifier. just google "what the font" 

[Tomcatter87]

48 minutes ago, prccowboy said:

If you have a fairly good photo, you can match the font or find a decent alternative with an online font identifier. just google "what the font" 

Thanks for the hint, I'll check out if that works.

[Tomcatter87]

Well, here it is: 

[Gunslinger22]

Well after losing all my .PSD's for the 5+ skins I was working on I have decided to start on some again. 

VF-24 'Thief Of Baghdad' 1991 should be finished soon, here is what I have after todays session.

[Tomcatter87]

@Gunslinger22: Oh, what a bummer. But that cat really looks good!

[LanceCriminal86]

16 hours ago, Tomcatter87 said:

Well, here it is: 

 

First note, that helmet in the photo is a rare 70s transitional helmet as the HGU-33 came online. You can see it's an APH-6 Custom with the Swingaline mask bayonets.

 

If you're not in the Tomcat Association FB page, get there. There's a good photo of a 1982-1983 cruise helmet, but so far nothing detailed showing 1981 or before.

 

It's hard to pick out from the 1981 cruise, might be the blue helmets still but none of the pics are clear enough here:

https://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/cv66-81/576.htm

 

Photos from VF-114 did show they still had their Black with Orange helmets, so maybe they hadn't been hit with the Navy order for all white base taping.

 

By 1982, they had white helmets, taped. You can see it in the 1982 cruise book here:

https://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/cvn65-82/386.htm

https://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/cvn65-82/390.htm

https://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/cvn65-82/396.htm

 

 

 

Need to build yourself some non-taped base textures. I took the original from the VF-74 Adversary skin and used a lot of clone/blur tool to eliminate the tape lines. Then used a lot of blur tool to blend in the background to create a "base" un-taped helmet.

 

Once you get a plain base you can start building layers and groups with some masks, and go wild.

 

Then you need to basically do the same in the Roughmets and the Normals, eliminate the tape lines. Ideally you also should relocate the Velcro to pilot's right. It's where most of the IR strobe patches have been in lots of Tomcats and USN helmets I've seen. Then move the velcro roughmet/normal portions over.

 

After all that, you can tweak the blue and green layers of the roughmet to give the helmet some shine. Can't really do the metallic flake but maybe use heavy noise on the metallic layer to have brighter/shiny points all around.

 

 

[Swordsman422]

Lance is right. You can see the APH-6D here with butterfly bayonets. Instead of tape for the base color, they used a gloss paint and then a high-gloss clearcoat with metal flake in it. The decals were still made of 3M reflective, though. This was the result.

 

Edited February 25, 2021 by Swordsman422

[Tomcatter87]

Nice. I might even try to do something with the helmets roughmet to replicate those metal flakes.

[Tomcatter87]

Allright, getting closer