Military AI Works

That looks bloody marvelous mate, well done indeed. I only ever modelled the A-4 to be used with the TopGun package but I was very happy with it and I never thought it got the attention it deserved. There are alot of modelling and texturing techniques used on it that were a first for my modelling.

Well done and keep it up.

Nick

It does look good, I know its a WIP but it does look good.

This is probably a couple of things that you have already found but just in case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_KAHU Shows a piccy of a two-seater, presumably, in the last scheme. Now whilst that one was built from spare parts the next page clearly shows ex-A-4Gs in flight in the same scheme, near the bottom of the page.
http://www.gibstuff.net/a4_alley/a4s_ops.html
Another place with all sorts of pics and info
http://www.kiwiaircraftimages.com/skyhawk.html

Wow, that looks great. I am not sure about the tail marking but still it looks great.

Nick
I am with you. I love this little bird and even though they aren't flying around real-word anymore I have them flying around Singapore, Austrialia and hopefully New Zealand soon.

Hi Nick,
Your A-4 like all of your models are top-notch and reach a whole world of flight simmers and enthusists so I can understand that it is hard to envisage the scope of your models popularity and the many forms it will take through its FS journey around the globe.

The beauty of flight sim as you know is that we can bring those old favourites back to life, like they have never left our skies and having to wait for an airshow with high hopes that someone has entered one for the display.

The A-4 in RAN colours alone has supprised me with the popularity of the textures being dowloaded and flight plan developers in the Ausssie Voz website already uploading flight plans and making ground scenery changes to to park them at Nowra.

I really hope that you can find a bit of spare time down the track to include a twin seater. I have your Miramar aircraft doing touch and goes on an aircraft carrier just off the coast and they look great. Had to do a bit of afcad trickery though so a wet model would be just to good to be true.

I had to reproduce most of the paintkit from scratch and has about 40 layers in photoshop. The hawk has over 70 layers of detail. I think if a paintkit was available for all your models, WOW, just image where it could led. Many of the parts that I use are photoreal and I think it adds a little extra detail that is sometimes lost or difficult to reproduce in painting. I like to overlay a real photo and work from there to have the colours match as closely as possble.

Thank's again Nick for a wonderful model.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the links, I will go have a lookseee. I've already downloaded about 50 photos but most are not of a lot of use to my style of painting other than for reference of certain bits and peices.

I'm not having a lot of luck with the alpha channel shine for some reason.
I'm only able to produce a slight shine in DXT3, so back to the reading pane for me on that one to see if there are any tricks for it. I'm just after a tad more shine to give it a lift from the almost flat-matt tone, not much more though.

Thanks again Steve.

Mark

Hi Jetmax,

If your looking to get involved and have a little time spare on your plate, you could do a bit of research for me and work out the aircraft numbers of 2sqn.

Let me know.

Regards,


Mark

This is the real thing.

I'll see what else I can dig up.

Ok, colour has been adjusted for FS light and tags applied along with a few extra bits and peices. Pretty much this aircraft scheme is a plan jane combat ready paint job.

Below is how they would look finished. Let me know if they need something or something needs to be adjusted. If you say colour, I will scream loudly and call you a few nasty names.

What I really need is clear and fairly large sqn decals for the tail in 2sqn and 75sqn.

One thing that needs to be adjusted is the col....

Nah, forget it I just can't do it to you .

I think she looks great! All I could find from the 75 Sq in this marking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:75_Squadron_RNZAF.jpg

One other Question. Where were the Aussie A-4s based at?

http://www.gibstuff.net/a4_alley/A4s-2-Sqn-Nowra.html

http://www.gibstuff.net/a4_alley/

Some more good pictures and Serial numbers

Do you think the colour needs adjusting, again?

Jetmax.
I don't think I can use anything from those sites unless I missed something. Surely, somebody has posted a photo somewhere.

I now have numbers, just don't know which SQN they belong too.

The Aussie A-4's were parked at Nowra.

From what I can see it looks like it needs to be a darker green. I'll pings some folks in one of my other fourms to see if I can find some better images.

This is the best site I have found for paint colour reference. http://www.jpsmodell.de/dc/schemes/nzaf_fb97_e.htm

You can copy and paste the colour chip into your paint program or use the folowing:

RGB: 111,108,76
Hex: 6F6C4C

Remember this gives a fresh out of the paint shop look. Also the photographs might not be giving the precise colour.

Oh' WOW, Thank's Graham. You really are the king.

No more guessing or weighing up a dozen photos as to which one looks to be the best photo reproduction of colour from old web photos.

Jetmax, I'll apply the colour match provided by Graham's sources and go from there. It is very hard to match just two photo's that I have out of 50 to produce a silimar tone so I was guessing. I really don't like to guess.


Thank's again Graham, I love your works.

jetmax wrote:I think she looks great! All I could find from the 75 Sq in this marking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:75_Squadron_RNZAF.jpg

One other Question. Where were the Aussie A-4s based at?

Great job guys, love the Scooter in any service, but what the hell is this mascot?

Victory103 wrote:

jetmax wrote:I think she looks great! All I could find from the 75 Sq in this marking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:75_Squadron_RNZAF.jpg

One other Question. Where were the Aussie A-4s based at?

Great job guys, love the Scooter in any service, but what the hell is this mascot?

It is a New Zealand Maori traditional pendant called a Hei-Tiki. If you google or look on wikipedia for Hei-Tiki it will explain about it. I think it is a carving of a foetus.., But it does have traditional meaning.

The last person to leave NEW Zealand please turn out the lights.

I'm not sure if New Zealand has a population any more or just a few caretakers flying too and from Australia???

Ok, according the Grahame King's favourite web source for aircraft colours, this is it. It is very close to a few of the picts that I have.
The aircraft scheme in real life is pretty drab anyway so its hard to make it look anything other than it is. These guys kept the theme of the Aussie A-4G's, the Kiwi's also couldn't settle on any particular markings and changed them frequently when they got bored.

Let me know what you think.

Mark