Air Europe - worn out and weathered...

[todayshorse]

Just somthing im working on, more for personal gratification rather than a request - its somthing ive wanted for ages but never really found a good one - a quick search of SIMV and others reveals not a lot of stuff in air europe livery...!!

Ignore the 'British Airtours' lettering, Air Europe seemed to lease there aircraft to just about anyone and everything, although this one may be an ex airtours in between livery, or an ex air europe in between livery.

My first ever experience of flight came aboard an Air Europe 737-200 adv - although i was too young to recall which reg number, and it was dark! Manchester to Majorca and return, 1982 ish.

The thing i remember most is the take off performance,

[todayshorse]

Heres somthing else ive just done, as an experiment - ran the .bmp through paint nets photo filters (soften and glow) with a touch of sharpness, then back to photoshop, and re-layerd the details, panel lines, dirt and grime.  Backed off on the opacity...and well - maybe this is the 'look' ive been after for some time!

Have i been missing a trick? Ive never read about doing this but it seems a good way to get some 'photo' realism into a paint without using photoreal cut-paste-move procedures...?

Seemed so obvious - altering screenshots to make them look real? Why not run the textures through an editor to make them look more real before they ever appear in the sim!!

Eureka



8-)Jean Alesi

[Hagar]

That's looking pretty good. The real test will come when you see it in the sim. Surprised you haven't tried it - or have you?

[todayshorse]

No, suprisingly - i havent yet!!! Been doing the engine nacelles and tail section, but been stuck with a problem with Photoshop - trying to do text, and it keeps coming out tiny - no matter what size i select.

Been trying to find the soloution and it appears the psd's are at the wrong resoloution, 7.62 pixels per inch/cm instead of 72

So when i was enlarging my text to fit it was terrible quality. So im just in the process of resizing everything and starting on the lettering - again

Bad lettering can ruin somthing like this i think - but ive not had this problem before. Hmmm

But normaly id have it in the sim pretty quick, mainly to check how things line up. Im quite looking forward to doing it as well!

[Rixster]

look sgreat so far, love to see what it looks like rendered...there's some great pointers & tutorials for weathering here if you're interested:

http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/

[todayshorse]

Cheers man, ive been there already lol

Ive also spent a few days trying to find the right font - i was sure MS Dialog was the one, but it kept turning out rubbish - all pixelated no matter what i did....but then i thought how would an airline established n 1978/9 use a microsoft font???

I think after trail and error its Helevicta - like Lufthansa and American and so on.....

Also found some good Boeing fonts on that site linked above - a god send and somthing ive been after or some time!

[todayshorse]

Ok i guess everyones feed up with my repaint larks - but i thought id show some engine nacelle work that ive been doing.

It might benefit someone in years to come looking on here and wondering how to get somthing looking like this!!! Or maye an exampe of how NOT to make it look like this

Anyhow, the base textures were ok but a bit 'sim' looking and a bit flat. So i used the best picture i could find of the JT8D, and a bit of cutting and pasting, and warping, smuding, blurring and erasing, i thik the end result is not too bad 8-)

The air europe im painting appears to not have the hush kits or any markings on the engines whatsoever! Not that i can see anyway

[todayshorse]

And heres how it appears in the sim over the original base textures suppied wit the paint kit. You can see how beneficial it is to use this sort of method over painting the engines.

As here though proves -  i think although the paint is excellent, adding the new engines makes the aircraft look 'sim' more than it did...

You can also see how i need to alter the engine inlet and rivet line and re-do the clam shells on the reversers to complete the look.....





Ill shut up now until its complete - just thought some might be interested in the methods used (well the ones i use - which may well be wrong!) to paint aircraft

[Rixster]

man I think you did awesome, that looks fantastic..bet it took some work

[todayshorse]

I only did the enigines on that one above, but thanks lol

[Rixster]

well the engine looks just about perfect especially in the shot where it's banking and the reflection is good..very photorealistic..and keep posting...to heck with the no reply-ers...You've worked hard on that and you deserve to showcase it even if it's only for one or two people...I'll keep checking on for sure to see how it's coming...

[todayshorse]

Thanks man! I realise 'tubes' are not the most popular of aircraft - my repaint downloads show that the three or four props ive done have currently nearly 2 or 3 times as many downloads as my 'tubes' - but i like the slightly older airliners, and the classic liveries that went with them, so thats what i do

Anyhow, despite the past two or three days trying to get to grips with lining the tail up to the fuselage, i think ive cracked it. I was just about ready to bin it to be honest - it was getting that bad!

Must have had at least 10 goes - only a fraction out every time, but still out! Its now a very very very tiny amount out of alignment - but,  the more i faff the more i seem to ruin things.  :So much easier when the tail is part of the full fuselage psd!!!! - i even pasted the tail onto the fuselage but still it didnt quite work...

So here we go. Im still experimenting running the textures through an editor, it came out good but needs more refinement i feel. So these are the 'what i painted' textures. Im terribly pleased with this, its took some work for what seems quite a simple livery!

[gtirob01]

Well, you gotta remember, alot of your "tubes" repaints are for payware aircraft. The paints for the Kingair of course are freeware and are available to anyone and everyone. But hey, they are all great looking. If I had some of those payware jets, id most certainly have your paints on them!

[todayshorse]

Thanks m8, yeah i realise the bulk of them are for the CLS 747 and not everyone has it - but this one is defo 100% freeware!