How can I make a paintkit from a repaint?

[Motley]

Hi everyone.

I found this place while doing a Google search. I was looking for any information related to making a paintkit. Thanks Google!


I'm new to microsoft flight simulator 2004 and a user of adobe photoshop 7. I didn't know where specifically I should post this, so I just posted my question here. I hope this was a good spot.

I don't mess with the flying simulator very much, but would like to make some repaints for those who do. I've searched all over the different sites looking at all the aircraft and repaints available for this and see that there are paintkits for some, others there are not.

My question is this. Can a paintkit be made for a specific aircraft from an already prepared repaint? If so, I'd like to learn how to do this. If anyone can give me a tutorial, pointers, hints or any ideas whatsoever, I'd appreciate it.

This is a nice place. Great Tutorial Section I might add

Thanks for your time...

Motley Rausch

[adlabs6]

Hi and welcome!

Just to clarify, do you use Paintshop or Photoshop?

Now to the point of your question. I'd say making a paintkit from a repaint would be possible depending on the repaint itself. Very simple solid schemes or bare metal would be easiest to attempt this with though. The big problem is getting the aircraft detail elements like rivets and panel lines separated from the paint, and a simple monotone scheme would really help.

If you are able to get the important parts of the aircraft off the existing repaint, you'd then have to make them all a neutral color tone, like gray or black, as they'd probably be tinted to blend into the repaint. And from there you'd try to blend these details into your own work.

Now a final and most important consideration, is whether you'd intend to release this paintkit, or any repaints based off it. By nature, your kit will contain the work of who ever made the repaint you started with, and you would really want to have that artist's permission to redistribute a modified version of their work.

Hope that gives some answers. If you've any other questions feel free to ask!

[KevinJarvis]

I have been making my own paitkits for FS9 of late.
I simply take the original texture file, paste it to a new layer. I then redo everything..panel lines, hardware and so on by cutting and pasting them onto a new and separate transparent layer. Save this file as PSD or PSP and then you'll have it to use for new repaints.
KJ

[ejwells409]

I also make my own layered paint kits with a few variations on those already mentioned (I use Paint Shop Pro8). In FSX, I enlarge the original texture to 4096x4096 (the finished product is amazingly crisp as you might imagine). For FS9, 1024x1024 is the max. In both cases, once enlarged to the required size, I lay in all new lines and rivets. . .why?. . .because copying the existing lines will only give you the same fuzziness you had with the original and you want sharp/crisp lines. . .so even though it means more work. . .do it yourself, you'll be a lot happier with the final product. Rivets are the same way. . .I tweaked one of the "line" variations (dots) so that the spacing was correct for most aircraft rivet placements. Draw a long line and you have ready made rivets (vertical, horizontal or any angle in between and using the "point to point" line drawing tool will give me any shape rivet set I need. Change the pixel size and the rivets get larger for areas such as cowling, where Zeus fasteners would be. Works great.
Bottom line, take the time to construct your own layered paint kit. . .it's well worth the effort.