steve dra

American Airlines...oh how I hate your paint! So the bottom line is that this is going to be a gradient paint. After trying many flat paint variants....I was never completely satisfied with outcome in the sim...even if I felt I nailed the color (which you never can with a metallic paint using a flat color BTW) Anyway..... This series of screenshots shows you the stark difference between a flat and gradient paint. 1st up....the madness that is my paint shop when working on countless variations of colors, hues, brightness, gradient patterns and such...here I am adjusting a gradient...the notepad shows just some of the colors I tried to match (7 on this list...many others that I didn't even bother to log after seeing them in the sim) what see see in the real world. Notice the bottom fuse (left side of the plane) is slightly darker than the right (I'm playing with the best brightness level now that I'm happy with the color...for now) Depending on your monitor settings....it may not even be noticeable to you (hence the issue we have when someone claims a paint is too dark or light...sometimes its just monitor settings....or in-game settings, or Nvidia settings, or HDR settings, or time of day, season, cloud coverage, angle of view, etc....) Now see the difference in flightsim.... Pretty amazing contrast in the sim vs what's on my paint screen huh? Of course the light source in the sim is heavily influencing this effect as well....but you see the challenges painters face to get all the various paint settings just right (or as close as we can) Finally....this next pic clearly shows how superior a custom gradient looks against a flat color selection when it comes to replicating a metallic paint in flightsim. The mid-fuse texture map (on the right of the screen with the "n" in American near the border between the 2 texture maps) as you notice is a flat color...one of the many grays I tried after going thru my blueish phase....which I found is only relevant on an overcast day after looking at 100s of photos. I may add just a tinge of blue to the final color to get a best mix scenario...as the in-sim color rendering engine does not faithfully reproduce the different hues you see in varying overcast conditions (Trust me I tried every type of overcast and saw no appreciable difference in the fuse color) I KNOW you guys are anxious to fly an American paint...and trust me I'd like nothing more than to release one now for you guys to fly....but it would be a flat-color version that I would not be happy with...and neither would you after seeing a properly painted, gradient version. Give me some time....in the midst of the holiday season when I'm not painting full time as you can understand....and I'll give you the best American Airlines repaint I can.....After all...I've done a few good ones in the past...hehe. Okaayyyyy.....that is the OLD AA paint in bare metal (with PBR effects)...but you get the idea...I like to produce very good paints.

Beautiful Holgi! Still working on this when I can....

I think someone is doing Hawaiian....I thought I saw something just a page or 2 back.... Last update for this weekend....need to get ready for a busy work week. I'll work more on this one when I can, and wrap up Cathay and Qantas.

Considered...approved....now in process

Lufthansa just uploaded

Considered....decision to follow shortly.

Will include textures for both tails....with and without the lufthansa.com text so you can fly the older or newer version.

That's what I heard too..... This one will be tough though....don't look for it from me for a bit. She is also not the 1st in line (am I really a retired painter? LoL)

Yep noticed. Its also noted in the release notes that its not fully ready yet. For now we just have to manually install the liveries. Not a big deal...I'd rather be flying (and painting it) now, than for them to hold the release of the plane until the livery manager was done. I'd still be waiting to paint this one if they held the release for the livery manager.....and now its just about done!

Good to see you painting Matt! I'll finish up this Qantas and let you handle the rest! (you can never have too many Qantas liveries)

Working on this one as well as wrapping up Qantas.... Adjusting the light green stripe....a little lighter in this pic... A lot of work adjusting the colors to make them look right in flightsim.

Delta released....get her here:

Hmmm....Cathay special liveries...I have done special Cathay liveries before.:) 1st Boeing converted Freighter... I really like Cathay!! In fact Mapping out Cathay in new colors... I may register this one as LBB and then make the 1000th version afterwards. We'll see.

Making progress.... Nose doors and static port details on the maps now. Just need to align the blue bottom, adjust the size of the Delta on the belly, do some color matching and fine-tuning....you know...the hard stuff!

Waiting on a few approvals on the Delta paint to come back before I can continue, but she may be ready to "test" this weekend. In the mean time....continuing work on the 'Roo" (need to get his leg on the fuse as you can see). Slapped on some other elements of the paint and took her on a photo shoot past a rather famous landmark of Sydney

Me too.... And when I'm done painting it I'll share. (Don't ask when it'll be done because I don't know... and its not the at the top of the queue.)

Work in process