NZFF

Started working on my first repaint today....New Zealand's "Coast Air" for Eric Dantes' DHC-6 "Twin Otter" (short nose version).



The following is left to do:

Swishy line on the nose .... challenging.

"Coast Air" text on the right side.....easy.

"Coast Air" logo on the tail.....easy.

Red-orange wingtips/flap section.....should be easy once I figure out how it's mapped.

More red with white stripe near front of engine.....shouldn't be too bad once I figure out the mapping.

Tail swishy lines.....challenging and will probably take the most time.

3 letter registration below horizontal stabilizer.....easy.


The following thread has a link with the picture of the real plane in it.
http://rnzaf.proboards.com/index.cgi?actio...1333&page=1

Hi Sean,

Very nice repaint indeed. Where can I get the original plane for it?

The plane is created by Eric Dantes' and pretty much every major FS library has it. Just make sure you search through the variants and grab the short nose model if you want to use this livery when it is released.




A stopping point for today....


Colored the engines, added logo and name to both sides of the plane.

I know the fore and aft sections of the plane don't exactly match color wise yet...just a few easy mods that I didn't yet make after adding more to the paint. It's all just a few button clicks and opacity settings to adjust later.

TO DO:

Figure out that wing mapping....colorize the tip in red-orange up to that point where it sticks out on the leading edge.

Add 3 letter registration below horizontal stabilizer

Cheat line curves on nose.

Cheat line curves on tail.

Figure out where the engine spinner cap is and color that red orange.

Looking great Sean....man, you have got Otter fever

Great job Sean

Looking good Sean

Yep - looking pretty good Sean! It's making my Islander look decidedly prehistoric though! The Otter's quite a stylish little plane, isn't it?

Wo-hooo, now that's a smashing start, Sean!
Congratulations!

You've already detected the major glitch of the Dantes model:
The model has some 'dents' in the hull (nose section and around the rear doors), causing those swishy lines...

The comparable PAD model - although not as detailed - is far more 'slick', cheatlines will remain straight.

I think I'll better take the PAD model as base for my upcoming Mount Cook repaints...

Cheers,
Markus.

Was about to send you something about that Markus! The wavy lines don't really both me, but for your Mount Cook paints, the rudder (only that part of the vertical stab) on this Dantes one is a mirrored texture, which means that any readable text would be a no-go.
I'll have to see how the VC is in the PAD series yet again. For some reason I remember not being thrilled with it overall, but it's worth another look.

Up next after this one will probably be any of the following.....


Great Barrier Airlines DQ-FDK (as seen in the photos)

Wien:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Wien-Consol...nada/0489314/L/

Raeford:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Raeford-Exp...nada/0455983/L/

Suburban:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Suburban-Ai...nada/0331919/L/

Metro:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Metro-Airli...nada/0225909/L/

Here's a workaround for the mirrored rudder part:
The logo and text is to be shifted frontwards - would be one of the compromises a repainter has to cope with...



But I don't think I'd get too happy with those distorsions:



The cheatline (and even the lettering) just looks too wacky, and I don't know any way to compensate this.
Now heading towards the PAD Twotter...

Sean , Markus , now that would be one hell scary mission , great effort getting that far only to find this lets you down !

Well I'm sticking with my Dantes one for this run. The paint works out well on it due to the lack of text on the main body. I got the tail done today (except for the reg)!



Left to do:

Nose

Wings

Prop spinner (once I find it)

Registration

Might tweak the tail a little bit and see if I can bring the orange down a tad.

Some alpha channel tweaking due to some coloration differences (in the white shades) due to the model itself between the fore and aft sections. (you can probably see the split near the lower portion of the aircraft, by the rear doors. The model split starts between those two big doors on the side.)

Besides the nose, the rest is easy. It may be done by the end of this week!

Sean , i had a very similar change with an early Connie model , some gentle paint and mapping cleaning the cheat line up .. it just a little extra time but when finished damn worth it .

Yep, I just want to add a little more white space at the top of the tail, and a little less at the bottom of the tail!

I'll probably be done with it by the end of this week as long as nothing major in the real world happens.

I will upload it to:
Simviation
The Sim-Outhouse
Flightsim.com (maybe)

....and if Lawrie (Snowman) wants to put it on http://snowman.ozsimdev.com.au/ he is more than welcome to!

It'll be a "textures only" file, so downloading the original short nose plane will be a requirement.

Sean ... these planes , so light skinned .. after a period off good use , they do get the jiggie jiggies and all knocked around

Spot the difference!

Here's a first shot with the PAD Turbine Turtle:




Awesome work on the curved tail lines, Sean!

I think she's ready!

I've sent it to one beta-tester/test flyer on another forum for the final go ahead....and then it will be released!



EDIT/UPDATE: Added a newer image after a last minute change to the nose.

Uploaded to Simviation and The Sim-Outhouse.

If "Snowman's" NZ addons website is still active, he can put it up there as well.

UPDATE: Re-uploaded the Sim-Outhouse one just now with a cheatline adjustment on the nose. The file at SimV had to be reuploaded too, but it was not in their library yet anyway.

Wildbillkelso wrote:

QUOTE (Wildbillkelso @ Jun 16 2010, 01:39 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The cheatline (and even the lettering) just looks too wacky, and I don't know any way to compensate this.
Now heading towards the PAD Twotter...

Appears to be due to the modelling. Whoever made the model has tweaked the shape after texturing, but has not "reset" the positioning.

Could those "crinkled" textures be fixed?
Assuming that MDLmat won't be the right tool to do so, I additionally presume that the model's source code would be needed.

The Dantes/Ilanes Twotter is originally a FS2002 model, upgraded to FS2004, so maybe those dents occured during the conversion...

Cheers,
Markus.