Hellcat Color's Perfect Now
Whiplash has put together some more great pictures of his model Hellcat, which seems to be another popular ship in the news lately. He's gone crazy with the color accuracy by referencing authentic RGB values. This update also goes beyond primary hull paint and adds engine intake detail. These were patterned off the high resolution WC4 videos. More elements like this will continue to be added, which should go a long way towards making the ship look like the battle-hardened jack-of-all-trades that we're familiar with!
Hi everyone!Although the hull painting was pretty much completed in my previous update, I still wasn't completely satisfied with the colour (I'm finicky that way...). So I decided to take things to the next level. I took some RGB values from my reference material, and made myself a proper colour chart. Here it is:
Next came the challenge of trying to mix paint from RGB values. After extensive searching, I came across a few sites that guided me in the right direction. If anyone is ever in a similar situation, I found this one to be particularly useful: http://www.goldenpaints.com/products/mixer/
After a lot of trial and error, I finally settled on a mix that seemed to match the reference pictures and in-game screenshots quite well. Here is the end result, although to be honest, I don't think you will notice much of a difference compared to the previous pictures. Still, I'm happier with the colour now.
With the hull now finally painted, it was time to move on to some finer details.
First up, I added engine intake detail similar to that found on the larger Confed ships. Once again, the reference material proved to be priceless. I got a really nice shot of the intake pattern from one of the new Wing Commander IV HD FMV clips, so special thanks to the CIC for providing those! Took some tricky painting with a fine brush, but the result looks even better than I expected, and I think it adds a nice little touch of realism.
Then it was time to start work on the engine intake vents. I managed to find some insanely thin pieces of balsa in my scrap box, cut the strips to the correct length, and painted them. Add a bit of wood glue and some tweezer work, and voila!
I'm really excited about how the ship is taking shape. More updates soon.
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