Forgive me if you take my word for beiing rude but I don't see any improvement among all "skins" you've made available here or elsewhere.
Basicaly your "skin" are just blank ones with the void. The only changes are background colors with one or two details added without any respect for structural lines or "pseudo-realism".

That kind of skins wont reach a big audience, because they don't match many needs, and you suffer the comparison with many other talented skinners.
My best advice would be that you keep these skins for you, unless someone ask for that kind of skin.
If you want to progress with photoshop in skinning, give yourself some quality standard to reach. Look at others skinners work and try to see in what aspect your can progress. And when you have reached a point then head to the next. Making a descent skin is a matter of patience and work, I'm sure that you will be able to make excellent skins with your entousiast, just take time to make them, and to burn the steps.
Here's one exemple of what you can reach with time and patience:

And here is the skin:

As you can see there is a big difference with your work. Try to make something "finalised", post screenshots of your skins in situation and ask for advices, most skinners will be happy to help you.

Many of us have tried to give him that advice since he started posting his "skins" but he still keeps churning out much of the same
V

stealth owl. take this as friendly advice,
admitted i havent downloaded any of your skins because i dont see the connection between Starwars and Hostrical WW2 planes but of course thats your choice but also blank skins with no details or variation at all is honestly a little ehm...boring.

as tromplamort says, look for inspiration among other skinners.

These are the things that Friendly_flyer wanted me to learn before he would Teach me how to do skins and these are JUST the basics. As anyone can see progress in ones work is the Key element of getting a constructive opinion and help.



Use the list below do some weathering some exhaust marks powder marks from the guns.



Friendly_flyer

Posted Sun August 23 2009 22:09 Hide Post
"Before I start on "how to make templates" I need to know if you have some of the basic skills needed. They are the same for Photoshop and GIMP. Can you:

- Select a layer
- Turn layers on and off?
- Change opacity of a layer?
- Move layers (opp and down the layer stack)?
- Ad a layer?
- Merge layers
- Copy a small picture (any) into the template
- Change the drawing tool from brush to pencil and back to brush?

Only when you can do all those things, will there be any use to continue teaching you how to make a template. Heck, even making a skin from a ready-made template will be hard without knowing this."

Owl I consider you a friend and you have helped me with a number of things TOTALLY new to me. Now please from one friend to another show progress. And I would wager you will get all the help you need.

quote:

And here is the skin:

May I Please have a template of that.

The screen shot makes me dizzzy

quote:

- Select a layer
- Turn layers on and off?
- Change opacity of a layer?
- Move layers (opp and down the layer stack)?
- Ad a layer?
- Merge layers
- Copy a small picture (any) into the template
- Change the drawing tool from brush to pencil and back to brush?

I can do those.

I could not until I asked for help so I had to learn. And since then I believe I have should progress. And that is what these guys are looking for. Most of my questions are through PMs and I asked someone that I thought was patent and encouraging. I believe I made a wise choice. And when I finally get a skin that I think is worthy of the forums I may post it. The feASSgo with the flame jobs CRAP I did not want to know how to make a flame job JUST copy and past a COLOR imeg to the template. And when I finally was able to get the color on the template(the P-47)it went ignored. Hence the PMs.

Any way I would LOVE to see your work as a screen shot ,because my HD is only 80 gigs)I don't have a lot of room to spare, and learn your tricks share some of mine. Swap some template's You know like TEAM work. Every one had to learn from some one and the some one they learned from is the person you should learn from. Or as a real student would say"You need to learn from the person who taught me"Most students forgot what it was like not to know something or just plain got to big.
My last post was meant to help not hinder your efforts as I think all the posts were also meant to help.

quote:

Originally posted by The_Stealth_Owl:
I can do those.

You can do this already or you can do this as a question?

Don't want to knock mate but all you are showing is a void with a coloured layer under the lines and rivets. On some the coloured layer goes over the mech.

Now I cannot for the life of me make a template, but I add to them and constantly (to my mind) improve them and change things to suit (converting the Spit MkVb to the MkI/IIa)

Stop posting voids fella and practice.

I just made a realy good skin, its for the YP-80, its a F-22, its waiting approval.

It actualy looks good.

I'll wait here to see it OWL

quote:

Originally posted by Tuphlandng:

May I Please have a template of that.

The screen shot makes me dizzzy

It's basicaly Jester's template available at Simmer's paintshop BUT heavily modified with a few layers from Shooter and a lot of layers from myself. It is still a work in progress and still not finished. At the moment I dont plan to release the template to public as it is not completely done by me.

I still haven't figured out how to do weathering!!!

A way to make simple weathering:

For Exaust stains- use a lightish brown, use the brush (thats what i do anyway, use whatever works best for you), make it a bit transparent and use many strokes widest at the port and thin it out as you move farther from the exaust port. Mix in a little gray or black. But not too much.

Gun smoke stains- same as above. Just make them smaller and use black.

I can explain specifics if you want me too. Just PM me or something. Im by no means good, but I'm doing ok so far. Again, try making real paint schemes. It makes you work for the right effect and improves your skills

How do I ajust the transperentcy?

I know how to do the color to alpha thing, but thats about it for transperency.


My next projsct is a Nasa Space Shuttle for the A-20.

You said you can do that

quote:

Originally posted by The_Stealth_Owl:

quote:

- Select a layer
- Turn layers on and off?
- Change opacity of a layer?
- Move layers (opp and down the layer stack)?
- Ad a layer?
- Merge layers
- Copy a small picture (any) into the template
- Change the drawing tool from brush to pencil and back to brush?

I can do those.

How do you change the Opacity?

Trust me Owl you cant make a good skin in only five minutes...
And for weathering take time, gather documentation about the plane you are skinning in order to have a good idea of what it looked like in real conditions.
There's no universal recipe you can apply on every plane you are skinning. My best advice would be you focus on ONE bird for the moment, take the time to learn the mapping of the skin over the 3d model, then start painting a camo, and after that, you can see how to do the weathering.
In skinning PATIENCE is the word..

Look at that GIF it's a very simplified version of my template, try to count the number of layers, and then guess how long it took me to produce it.

quote:

Originally posted by Eow_TK:
A way to make simple weathering:

For Exaust stains- use a lightish brown, use the brush (thats what i do anyway, use whatever works best for you), make it a bit transparent and use many strokes widest at the port and thin it out as you move farther from the exaust port. Mix in a little gray or black. But not too much.

Gun smoke stains- same as above. Just make them smaller and use black.

I can explain specifics if you want me too. Just PM me or something. Im by no means good, but I'm doing ok so far. Again, try making real paint schemes. It makes you work for the right effect and improves your skills

What about dirt??

use your imagination. improvise. experiment!