Here's one for Bullethead: Austrian Swirl Camo for OFF

[+RAF_Louvert]

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Good Morning All,

 

I began work on this one last night after being inspired by Bullethead's Austrian hex camo D.VII. Had to hand paint my own four-color Backhausen & Sohne swirl camo fabric, based on original pics and info over at the Aerodrome forums, and then laid it onto an an OFF early D.III. So far so good, but I have a lot of tweaking to do before it is done. I'm just heading out for the day now, but I wanted to share a screenshot with you folks before I left. Be back tonight. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

Lou

 

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[HouseHobbit]

Beautiful!!

BRAVO!!

[+Olham]

Damn, Lou, you got me into a fine dilemma.

You did such a good and fine detailed job there - but then, to plaster a beautiful Albatros

with a pattern, that would have suited my grandma's sofa... Aaaargghhh!!!

 

Just found this photo at AEROSCALE.

Looks like this Austrian Albatros DID have a problem with it's lower right wing?

 

 

[nbryant]

Looks good Lou. You guys are giving me that skinning itch again. Maybe time to break out the ones I never finished and get them on the board.

[Bullethead]

Excellent job on the "flying sofa" pattern, Lou! I'll be sure to download it once it's finished. I expect you'll have a Hell of a time getting the pattern to match up on the various fuselage pieces, though. Have fun :).

 

Olham, apart from the missing tip, that wing structure looks pretty much intact. I can't hazard a guess as to how that happened, or if it has something to do with the plane being nose-first into a rail fence. It might just be that the plane was skinned by Italian troops; there are a lot of pics of Austrian planes in such condition immediately after the war.

[Beanie]

Another fine skin RAF

[+RAF_Louvert]

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Thanks Gents, glad you like it so far.

 

Olham, I've seen that photo before myself and I believe the damage was caused by a rough landing and scavengers afterwards, as noted by Bullethead, and not wing failure in flight.

 

BH, there is no way on God's green earth to make this fabric pattern work on the top of the OFF Alb fuselage due to all the many wrap distortions, but that's OK as there are RL examples of the Austrian kites having either the natural finish or a painted color on the top cap, (the latter being what I've settled on). Here's a new screenie I snapped a few minutes ago to show the current status of this project:

 

 

 

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

 

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[+Hasse Wind]

Hey, that looks great!

 

Not nearly as psychedelic as the pink Fokker or the bizarre BE.2.

[Bullethead]

Brilliant, Lou! Can't wait to give it a go.

 

I'm thinking that this camo pattern must have been something done in the field. Do you know how many planes were painted this way?

 

If this was done in the field, I think it speaks volumes for the KuK air force having a rather low sortie rate. I'm sure it must have taken ages to paint a plane that way. Maybe they did this during long periods of being grounded by Alpine winters?

 

BTW, I'm writing a paper summing up my very limited knowledge of KuK camouflage, which I intend to toss out for others to pick apart, correct, and add to. May I use this pic to illustrate my paper?

[+Olham]

As Lou noted in his first post, this camo was attached by Backhausen & Söhne - not in the field.

This company are really making furniture textiles.

There is even a WIKIPEDIA site about them - unfortunately not in English though.

 

http://de.wikipedia....khausen_&_Söhne

 

There is only a rather short line about their WW1 production; it doesn't even mention the aicraft

camouflage specificly. I translated it like this:

 

During World War Backhausen produced for the Imperial Army fabrics for uniforms, blinds, awnings, bread bags, parachutes and flags.

 

So, maybe it was like German Lozenge - a printed fabric camo.

Edited August 19, 2012 by Olham

[+Hasse Wind]

So, it's the Flying Furniture? Nice!

[+Olham]

What I was saying all the time - a flying sofa! Aaaargghhh!!!

[+RAF_Louvert]

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Olham, you are spot on about this camo being a printed fabric. Here are two photos showing a sample of the original fabric before installation:

 

 

 

 

And here is an original factory artwork template I worked from to create the 'fabric' for the OFF Alb I am working on:

 

 

 

I found this template being discussed by the late, great Dan San Abbott and others in the following thread over at The Aerodrome:

 

http://www.theaerodr...an-lozenge.html

 

Very informative. And yes, flying furniture ... stylish.

 

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[+RAF_Louvert]

And certainly BH, you are more than welcome to use images of this kite in your paper Sir.

 

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[Bullethead]

Thanks, Lou. I should have the paper done fairly soon and look forward to getting contributions and corrections :).

 

And thanks for the info on the pre-printed fabric. It does seem to have evolved from a hand-painted original idea, however. At least that's what I gathered from the thread you linked.

[+Olham]

Now you guys got me hooked, and I tried my own interpretation of that sample drawing.

I follwed the lightness / darkness according to the colours in the drawing; the darkest being

dark olive, and the very lightest being the sandcolour/tan of the Albatros fabric.

Not knowing the colours, I went by German Albatros colours; and took the "mustard yellow"

from the Lozenge colour. How do you like it?

 

If anyone wants to use my sample, feel free to do so.

 

 

Edited August 19, 2012 by Olham

[+RAF_Louvert]

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That's nice Olham, however now give a try at repeating the pattern. It does not fit to itself without a LOT of work, (I found that out the hard way on Friday night). However, I will be making my fabric sheet available as well and is very large so you can do any plane you wish with it.

 

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[+RAF_Louvert]

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Here you go, fellow OFF skinners. Just click on the following link and save the image to your computer. I've done all the grunt work on this so you need only adjust the size and color and such and generally just go crazy with it.

 

http://theambulancem...o_2600x2600.jpg

 

 

Have fun!

 

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[Bullethead]

@Olham

That's a legit interpretation. There are those who say the base fabric color was a light yellow. Maybe they're both right in that the fabric came in 2 versions.

 

The thing is, I'd say the majority of all KuK planes ever in service were totally unpainted except for national markings and stencils. By the end of the war, most planes were painted one way or another but quite a few still weren't. Thus, having an overall yellowish pattern would not be out of character.

[+Olham]

I see what you mean, Lou - the drawn pattern doesn't seem to be perfectly right. Maybe it was done after your photo.

One would have to remove all distortion to make it work as a repetative pattern.

But I still find it too "Arrghh!" to go deeper into that. Maybe if we had the OeFFAG D.III in OFF, I would go further.

 

Here is the unpainted version, Bullet - kind of "sand" colour.

 

 

Edited August 20, 2012 by Olham

[+RAF_Louvert]

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Olham, the fabric image I created, (and posted the link for earlier in this thread), has been fitted and repeated, so you can simply clip out a piece that has all four "squares" and it will fit to itself on each edge. This way you can repaint it in any color combination you might like and use it to skin your own kites.

 

Also, I have just uploaded the completed Austrian Alb D.III in swirl camo. Enjoy!

 

 

 

Lou

 

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Edited August 20, 2012 by RAF_Louvert
not enough coffee

[stumpjumper]

awesome wish i would have had the pics of origanls wheni did my first sworl pattern years ago, will deinftly have to update mine

[+Olham]

Here is my interpretation of the colour pattern.

The only difference is, that I have dark green and brown the other way round.

So, while your pattern is more green-dominated, mine looks more brownish.

 

I used your pattern and changed the colours, Lou, rather than trying to make my own sample fit.

(It is really tricky!)

 

 

[+RAF_Louvert]

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That looks very good Olham. It's also mentioned in The Aerodrome threads that there were likely two or more versions of this camo, (a 'Spring' and 'Fall' version were talked about). And it was tricky to get the pattern to line up in the repeats which is why I shared my efforts here so that others would not have to spend hours fiddling with the same thing. Hope you'll be able to make use of the 'fabric' on some of your own skins.

 

Stumpjumper, glad you like the kite. Yes, I'm sure your job would have been much simpler way back when if you'd had the same resources to work from.

 

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Edited August 20, 2012 by RAF_Louvert
too much coffee

[+Hasse Wind]

I bet you could use those patterns to hypnotize somebody!