Black hawk shading 2.0

[Ironpriest]

Now...

I had a go at shading my 160th SOAR blackhawk "basic" model... and well... it went horribly wrong.
Now after studying pictures, i have started again and come up with this:




So, can anyone help me with one thing?
The join between the tail and the fuselage are two seperate shapes/layers so i can't blur the joint to make it less visible. How else can i do it? I have tried to match the shading shades but it doesn't seem to work.

You can see the line on the real life black hawks... but i don?t think it is as prominant.

Any ideas?
thanks,
BP

[Jarink]

You could try feathering the edge of the fuselage layer a bit. Not a lot, just right at the edge. If it were me, I'd either not shadow the tail boom or shade it very lightly.

[GrubbyFingers]

Hi again, BP.

My first question is: "Do the tail and fuse need to be on different layers?"

On my Hueys, which have a very similar break, the whole fuselage and tail paint is on one layer and then the shading is split in two. This allows me to control the edge between the two shading layers with feathering or fading or simply hitting one edge with a textured eraser at 5-10% opacity.

You are heading in the right direction with the shading. You could eliminate much of the vertical shading on the leading edge of the tail boom. The shading on the trailing edge of the cabin works because the cabin is curving away from you there, but it could be a lot lighter. The difference in shading only needs to be slight for the effect to be seen.

One thing that may help too: What opacity is your shading brush? I usually work at just 1-2% opacity in Darken or Multiply mode (or Normal mode if the layer is set up as Darken or Multiply) and build the shading up slowly with different size brushes. This gives you much more control over the subtlety of the forms. Don't forget you can use the same brush, in white, and set to Clear as a gentle eraser to lift parts of the shading as well.

You'll find that as markings and details get added you get a better feel for where the shadows should be and you can tweak them then.

I hope this helps!

Grubby.

[Vacajun]

BP,

You're getting the best advice available from Grubby! No one does rotorcraft better than GF!

Good luck and have fun.

[GrubbyFingers]

Kind words, Vacajun, but I can see Ugo Crisponi somewhere off on my own horizon!

[AGNT_Matt]

well you can rest easy Bjorns on holiday now back to work slackers (includes me unfortunately... damn groundschool)