Panel Lines in GIMP

[RAF_DesertDemon]

S! All!

Been using GIMP for a few months now, learning to do some custom skins, and I've been wondering how I could go about reducing the, say, "heaviness" of panel lines and rivets when working with a template or a stock void file.

I would imagine there is a tutorial on here somewhere about it, but just can't seem to zero in on it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and keep up the awesome work on this site. It's already been a great help to me.

S!

RAF_DesertDemon

[adlabs6]

Hi and welcome,

I would try reducing the opacity of the layer holding the lines and rivets. If they are on a layer with other parts in the template (and they certainly will be when working with a stock void), then I would carefully select all of the rivets and lines and transfer them to a new layer (copy/paste should work).

Then you will have separate control of their opacity.

[RAF_DesertDemon]

Hi adlabs...

Thanks for the input. Yeah, with the stock Il-2 void files, they are part of the the template. Which raises another question...would you have to physically select all of the panel lines and rivets, crop them, and make the separate layer? (I understand the concept of making layers). Actually, that gives me an interesting thought...would it be easier to crop the parts other than the panel lines/rivets?

Your input is greatly appreciated, and I look forward to any other advice you can give me.

S!

RAF_DesertDemon

[ejwells409]

In every case, where I've decided to do repaints of aircraft that don't have a layered paint kit, I've manufactured my own. I've always found that most aircraft have panel lines that are much too thick. . .the same with rivets, so I set my layered kits up to allow for thinner panel lines and more precise rivet placement and size. Paint kits that are basically a single bitmap texture with the rivets and panel lines combined is worthless when doing anything more than just swapping out a color or adding a tail number. Doing your own layered paint kit gives you endless freedom to add layer after layer of shadowing, panel and rivet highlites and anything else you want to experiment with.