Ferret's Skinning Tips & Tuts

Dowly · 10-16-08, 06:57 AM

This is my 256th project/thingy I start and more than likely will never get around to finish, buuut you never know. :p

Anyhow, I wanted to share you some of the tricks I've learned during the years of skinning different planes.

Skinning Italian 109E:

1. Reference

Obviously, not needed if you plan to make a fictional skin. But if you're planning on making a historical skin, Wings Palette is the place to go. Tons of colored profile pictures of airplanes all the way from WWI to modern era. Just a word of caution, tho. Profile pics are usually scanned from old books and the colors are atleast on half the cases wrong/faded. Some pics mention the color codes used and you can go to Simmer's Paint Shop to see color charts for different countries.

2. Applying the paint

Naturally, you want to use layers if possible. Giving every major color of the camouflage it's own layer speeds up the skinning alot. Extremely useful when you are doing something messy (Dirt, weathering, mottling) that tends to spread to the parts you dont want to. Say, you added dirt to your uppersurfaces, just to notice later on that there's dirt on the bottomsurface areas. Make selection of the bottomsurface layer, select the dirt layer and delete.

The background painting is the easy stuff, so nothing more on that.

Righto, I need to get some pics for the next parts, which gonna be the fun parts. Details, details, details.

10-16-08, 06:57 AM	#1
Dowly Lucky Jack Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Finland Posts: 25,052 Downloads: 32 Uploads: 0	Ferret's Skinning Tips & Tuts This is my 256th project/thingy I start and more than likely will never get around to finish, buuut you never know. :p Anyhow, I wanted to share you some of the tricks I've learned during the years of skinning different planes. Skinning Italian 109E: 1. Reference Obviously, not needed if you plan to make a fictional skin. But if you're planning on making a historical skin, Wings Palette is the place to go. Tons of colored profile pictures of airplanes all the way from WWI to modern era. Just a word of caution, tho. Profile pics are usually scanned from old books and the colors are atleast on half the cases wrong/faded. Some pics mention the color codes used and you can go to Simmer's Paint Shop to see color charts for different countries. 2. Applying the paint Naturally, you want to use layers if possible. Giving every major color of the camouflage it's own layer speeds up the skinning alot. Extremely useful when you are doing something messy (Dirt, weathering, mottling) that tends to spread to the parts you dont want to. Say, you added dirt to your uppersurfaces, just to notice later on that there's dirt on the bottomsurface areas. Make selection of the bottomsurface layer, select the dirt layer and delete. The background painting is the easy stuff, so nothing more on that. Righto, I need to get some pics for the next parts, which gonna be the fun parts. Details, details, details. Last edited by Dowly; 10-17-08 at 08:22 AM.