Panel line colors

[Stormtrooper]

Painting a camouflaged aircraft and was wondering what are the best colors to use for the panel lines. Previous attempts are either to dark or to light it seems.

Just need ideas for the first 3 not the blue TIA

[bzhyoyo]

I generally use black, but I play with layers blending mode (I like overlay or soft light) then play with opacity and fill in order to get the effect I want.

[adlabs6]

I agree. I would use a neutral tone that is generally darker than the paint. Then use blending modes and layer opacity to get what I want. This gives you the most flexibility.

[Stormtrooper]

Ok i get the opacity...blending modes like smudge and blur?

[BLOWHARD]

OOOH OOH, I gotta get in here!
Keep in mind panel lines aren't really lines at all, a lot of the time they are smooth overlaps. The gapped access panels are a little wider and deeper, but most panel lines are really shadows, not lines.
Black is good to start, but as long as you think of panel lines are deeper darker areas of your paint, you'll get it right. A panel line should be darker on darker colors and correspondingly lighter on lighter.

[Stormtrooper]

Well i tried some of the techniques here...still looks dark. Single 1pixel black line with a gray line 5px whide for a shading kinda thing.

Looking for a way to make it more realistic.

[Serval]

You could set the opacity of the layer lower.
And just run through i's plending options to see what works best.
Making the paint more noisy also helps to make things blend.

But a lot also depends on the game engine and resolution of the skin.

[adlabs6]

Well that's a nice start ST. Definitely I'd lower the opacity further on the 5px shading lines. You might also consider playing with inverting that layer, so see what effect that gives. Sometimes a lighter shading line with a dark panel line looks good.

You might even consider dropping to a 3px width for those shading lines. As little as possible while still retaining the effect.

Agreed with Serval on 'noise' helping with blending. Very useful if the skin is high enough resolution.

[Stormtrooper]

Still adjusting...edited...I'm done