Japanese N1K2-J George Fighter WIP
9 Likes
Coat of paint and some basic decals. I know nothing about Japanese aircraft, so if my colors are wrong or insignia are placed incorrectly, please let me know.
3 Likes
The rising suns on the wings seem small, but it looks like they match most references. Good work.
This, as all the other works by you, is an outstanding model!
Great modelling, texturing, shading and presentation.
The Hinomaru seems to be slightly smaller than expected, espetially on the upper wing, but I’m sure you triple checked your references.
I could not find a great reference for how big to make the insignia. I’ll keep looking. They may, in fact, be too small. Thanks for the feedback.
… Somehow texture do not look right to me. Of course you can see paint which are damaged by weather in real life, but this is long process. Most WWII airplanes had very short lifetime 
They simply can not have such look. I love warbirds especially WII, see many photos and documentary avout this topic, and never see something like that.
here are some of my favorite on Artstation
Do not get me wrong, model are great, renders too. But subtle texturing is name of game I think. For example airplanes have scratches only on specific places, also there is loot of grease - oil liking. On your renders behind exhaust are something like mud ( ? ), soil… instead this is greasy and sooty…
One of the reasons I picked this particular aircraft was I wanted an exercise in Substance Painter for extreme weathering. Japanese planes at the end of WWII often did not have any primer and their paint peeled off quickly. I could probably reduce the dirt, but I don’t think the peeling paint is excessive for this type of aircraft. Examples:
Those artists you linked to are true masters. I follow their work too.
1 Like
last image is lost again !
the photo looks more like a scrap yard LOL
would you fly in an airplane like that ?
happy bl
Thanks for telling me the link didn’t work.
This really depends on area of deployment. Tropical storms carrying a lot of dust / sand particles would have seen planes or vehicles literally sandblasted and bare of any paint after a single storm. We have testimony for this in the North African theater where engines for example had only 1/5 of the normal lifespan but the climate in Southeast Asia is known to take a heavy toll on equipment, too.
It might well be one but it shows how planes would look very quickly if not constantly repaired and repainted. Maintenance hours for that kind of equipment are insane, especially close to the sea with its particularly corrosive air.
also there are fungus / molds that can attack almost anything from paint to electrical cables ect.
but not an easy time and in war anything goes i guess
happy bl
I guess that is all in artistic vision. First picture are most likely scrapyard, photo taken after war. On Google search are very few photos which show usual damage. Funny thing, I love to watch model makers videos… well they usually make too much damage, dirt, oil leaking, etc. This probably are not realistic… but look good, and this is most important things, right 
I think that’s mostly because people had to think twice before taking a photograph in the pre-digital era and with propaganda in mind even more. Also, planes would be repainted ASAP to stop further degradation and to keep the camouflage intact. Glass reflections from the cockpit being visible for miles in the sun were bad enough, no need to have shiny bare metal spots on even more parts of the frame.
So while planes, especially stationed in the pacific, would’ve experienced their fair amount of weathering, really bad it would’ve looked only for quite short periods of time. Not likely that a photographer was always around or would even want to take a photo.
If you find pictures with planes in such a sorry state they are indeed most likely abandoned. Leaving planes like that would be unforgivable from a maintenance point of view.
Do you use HDRIs for lighting, or do you do your own lighting and use a bg plate? I find that I never get that nice-looking sunlight with HDRIs, so I don’t know if I just need different ones, or if I need to actually do lighting manually to get good-looking images.
I use Blender Guru’s Pro Lighting Skies. I bought it several years ago and it made HDRI lighting really easy. If I were less lazy, I could plug HDRIs into the World Output node and manipulate the image orientation. Sometimes I add a couple of manual lights to add focus or put light into particularly tight spots.
I will often spin the HDRI around until it hits the model in a way that highlights the bump map. I think it helps the little details pop out.
Your Snipe looks like you rendered it with HDRIs. Didn’t you?
I’ve considered buying Pro Lighting Skies as well.
I do use HDRIs for the Snipe, but I don’t feel like it’s as nice as the light you have on these renders, like 025 and 030.