Anyone working on a Checkertail P-40 skin?

[Heck 496]

For Raven's P-40F, I mean.  I didn't want to start this, if someone was already working on one.  No sense having two skins on the same subject.  If no one is, I thought I might give this unit a try, to continue my new tradition of providing P-40 skins for which we have no theater.

Edited November 19, 2013 by Heck

[Wilches 1,172]

Hi Heck! It should be wonderfull to see you own checkertails, once your Burma Banshees are awesome! Take care on desert colors from template - they´re wrong. They should be darker, richier and more "yellowish". Find a good source. Cheers!

By the way, the "Checkertail Clan" used both the P-40F long tail and the P-40L.

[+RAVEN 414]

This might help (I'm reseached numb).

 

http://www.ratomodeling.com/articles/AVG_cammo/

 

Good Luck.

[Heck 496]

Thanks, guys.  I'll get started.  Raven, I know what you mean about research, but your P-40s have become my hobby.   I bookmarked that site.  Thanks.  I have loved this aircraft since I was a kid.  Your models are so cool that I feel like a kid again.  Wilches, thanks for the tip, and the compliment.  I'll be doing some research, looking at not only colors, but the F and L models.  Going to have to do all new layers on the template, not to mention finding decals and pictures to work from.  

 

Raven, no more research tips for idiot skinners.  We're all waiting for that P-40B!  Your models are awesome!

 

P-40s rule, despite their alleged mediocrity!

[+RAVEN 414]

Cool, the B an C are 90 % done,still doing the pit's. I may do an early model with the long gun tubes , A? Have to do some checking.

[Heck 496]

Cool, the B an C are 90 % done,still doing the pit's. I may do an early model with the long gun tubes , A? Have to do some checking.

I'm not big on wishlist things, but if you ever do an early K with the tail fillet...  Ignore me...  Sorry....

[+RAVEN 414]

Short Tail K , E with. Merlin nose and a Fillet , 1 mesh and some Duct tape.

 

This one?

P40 Article in Warbird Digest Issue 10.zip

Edited November 19, 2013 by RAVEN

[+SupGen 79]

Thanks, guys.  I'll get started.  Raven, I know what you mean about research, but your P-40s have become my hobby.   I bookmarked that site.  Thanks.  I have loved this aircraft since I was a kid.  Your models are so cool that I feel like a kid again.  Wilches, thanks for the tip, and the compliment.  I'll be doing some research, looking at not only colors, but the F and L models.  Going to have to do all new layers on the template, not to mention finding decals and pictures to work from.  

 

Raven, no more research tips for idiot skinners.  We're all waiting for that P-40B!  Your models are awesome!

 

P-40s rule, despite their alleged mediocrity!

 

 

  Heck, some beautiful skins; keep up the good work! Funny you should mention the P-40s' "alleged mediocrity", though, this always burns my ass when people who get their history from TV bring it up. In the world of TV history, we were losing the war until the arrival of the Hellcat, Corsair, and the Mustang. They were all great planes but the fact of the matter is that they were all playing cleanup; the war in both theaters had already turned in our favor by the time they arrived. After Midway and the battles around Guadalcanal in mid and late 1942, Japanese Naval Aviation had been crushed; a shell of the force that had attacked Pearl Harbor. Likewise, Japanese Army Aviation had also shot it's bolt; this was all achieved with the aircraft we started the war with, namely the F-4F Wildcat (another "mediocre" aircraft), the P-40 Warhawk, and the P-38 Lightening. In the Mediterranean the P-40 was widely used by both us and the Brits and in the European Theater, the combination of the P-38 and the P-47 Thunderbolt had the Luftwaffe cracking at the seams by the time the Mustang arrived; with the right drop tanks either of them could escort bombers to Berlin, and in the case of the P-38, far beyond.

[Heck 496]

  Heck, some beautiful skins; keep up the good work! Funny you should mention the P-40s' "alleged mediocrity", though, this always burns my ass when people who get their history from TV bring it up. In the world of TV history, we were losing the war until the arrival of the Hellcat, Corsair, and the Mustang. They were all great planes but the fact of the matter is that they were all playing cleanup; the war in both theaters had already turned in our favor by the time they arrived. After Midway and the battles around Guadalcanal in mid and late 1942, Japanese Naval Aviation had been crushed; a shell of the force that had attacked Pearl Harbor. Likewise, Japanese Army Aviation had also shot it's bolt; this was all achieved with the aircraft we started the war with, namely the F-4F Wildcat (another "mediocre" aircraft), the P-40 Warhawk, and the P-38 Lightening. In the Mediterranean the P-40 was widely used by both us and the Brits and in the European Theater, the combination of the P-38 and the P-47 Thunderbolt had the Luftwaffe cracking at the seams by the time the Mustang arrived; with the right drop tanks either of them could escort bombers to Berlin, and in the case of the P-38, far beyond.

There is nothing to do with this but agree.  You nailed it, SupGen.  The Wildcat and the 40 are very unappreciated combat aircraft by many people.  They were great aircraft.    

Short Tail K , E with. Merlin nose and a Fillet , 1 mesh and some Duct tape.

 

This one?

Oh yeah!  If you ever get around to doing it, you'll have almost the whole stable represented, because I can use your K-15 to simulate and early P-40N1.  I love Duct tape.  You have brought this family of aircraft to life, Raven.  Thank you.

[+RAVEN 414]

I'm not trying to make skinning tip's, I'm just running out of ideas, I've look at so many p-40 Templates that there giving me nightmares! ;-(

K-5 is done, Just have to do the trip hard point's for the ( little ) bomb's. Might have to make the bombs?

[Heck 496]

I'm not trying to make skinning tip's, I'm just running out of ideas, I've look at so many p-40 Templates that there giving me nightmares! ;-(

K-5 is done, Just have to do the trip hard point's for the ( little ) bomb's. Might have to make the bombs?

Raven, you've done amazing work on this series of aircraft.  Thank you.  

 

When it comes to colors, I tend to go to the known color sites, like Simmers Paint Shop, grab their chips, and then alter them to suit my taste, knowing that weathering layers will change their appearance even further.  As Wrench pointed out in another thread, Luftwaffe Gelb does better American ID yellow serials than the colors from color chips.  I don't blame you for having nightmares about templates.   People of the this modern digital world have forgotten how much even old color photographs taken on film can lie.  A lot had to do with where the sun was in relation to the photographer combined with his position to the subject, and the materials underneath the paint.  A photographer walking from the nose to the tail of an aircraft in the same shoot could alter the colors, because of his change in position, and even the age of the photographer's film, or whether it was a professional or amateur image could be an issue in the days of chemical film.  Kodachrome film wasn't invented until 1935, was expensive, and required a lot of light to get a good image.  The more you look at these old photographs, the more you realize that what you're looking at is not a true image, so I'll always prefer to work from color chips, because at least those were recorded on paper, like those you provided to me.    Now it's time to start that research, which can be enlightening, maddening, and fun, all at the same time.  

[+RAVEN 414]

Funny thing about research on the net , you can find what your looking for when looking for something else. , but if you don't save then, you'll never find it agin! Pure Fun Maddness.