Help with bare metal finish SBC-3 W.I.P

[jrcjr65]

Greetings All,
I'm looking for some techniques to create bare metal finish on a profile. I'm working on an SBC-3 profile and I could use some pointers. Here is what I have so far with just some light grey applied to the body.

Thanks,
John

[adlabs6]

Hello there, I'll give some advice on this. Looks like you've got a good line artwork to start with!

Bare metal is a tough topic, and it can be approached many ways. First thing to refer to is photographs of the real aircraft. Look for how the metal is treated, and if the metal is polished, or more dulled in appearance. Photos are really the ultimate advice for profiling.

Now to technique. The way you'll go at this will depend on the final effect you are wanting to achieve. Photo style realism, or illustration style? I'll post some links to tutorials which include some basics.

This is fairly straight forward, there are several good starting points for metal in this tutorial.
http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...ts-il2-fb.html

Here I created a more 'illustration' style artwork. I show some steps on how.
http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...-tutorial.html

And here is another, not related directly to bare metal but still fits the basic ideas.
http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...asy-steps.html

There are also some examples in the SPS gallery you can take a look at, some of which I've posted below.

Any questions on more specifics, just ask and I'm sure somebody will offer some tips. Be sure to update us with pics of your progress!

[BLOWHARD]

Interesting point of debate here; I believe these planes were painted in aluminum paint, not bare metal. Of course bare metal would look much more interesting and make a nice profile!

It might be something to think about at least

Serval has some good color notes here-
Color; Aluminum

I found this while looking-

GO AURORA!

[jrcjr65]

I would assume that bare metal would have a shiner surface then painted aluminum. Here is what I have so far and a picture of what I am working from. It's my wife's Grandfather's plane. In researching the plane colors it denotes a yellow upper wing however in the picture it doesn't appear to be a lighter shade then the lower wing. Also I can't seem to make out a white "S" in the red banding in the photo. When I enlarge it it looks like a black X. The picture is a photo of what my father-in-law has hanging on his wall so I could only use my digital camera to get a copy.