Creating Textures: Tri-Color Navy Camouflage

In my previous post I finished the case of so-called “two-color” U.S. Navy camouflage, which was used between September 1941 and January 1943. You can observe on the archival photos that its non-specular Sea Gray / Light Gray combination was especially prone to weathering, and accumulated every grain of the soot and drop of the oil stains. Simultaneously the weathered Sea Gray paint became more and more white.

The new, “tri-color” camouflage, introduced in January 1943, fixed these flaws, and provided better protection on the vast, dark waters of the Pacific. You can see an example of this pattern on an SBD-5 from VB-16 (Figure 78‑1):

Figure 78-1 Archival color photo of an SBD-5 from VB-16 (April 1944)

However, this historical photo has a technical flaw: its colors are “shifted toward blue”. You can unmistakably see this “shift” in the color of the bottom surface (it was Intermediate White). I was not able to correct this deviation, finding acceptable. Below you can see another photo of a SBD-5 from VSMB-231, which colors are more balanced (Figure 78‑2):

Figure 78-2 Archival color photo of an SBD-5 from VSMB-231

Creating Textures: Aircraft Skin Abrasions

It seems that Douglas used a high-quality paint for their SBDs, because I cannot find any trace of chips/flakes, even on such a worn-out aircraft as this from VSMB-241 (Figure 76‑1). However, you can see some scratches on the center wing, trodden by the crew:

Figure 76-1 Scratches on the center wing (SBD-3 from VSMB-241, Midway, mid-November 1942)

In the photo above, the minor scratches are yellow, because Douglas used a yellow layer of Zinc Chromate primer below the camouflage paint. (The interiors were painted with another layer of the Zinc Chromate, mixed with Lamp Black to obtain a darker, greenish hue).

However, the larger area along the leading edge was often trodden to the bare metal, which you can see in the photo. This scratch has a typical, irregular band of the primer around its borders. In this post I will recreate these abrasions.

Creating Textures: Color Map (2) – Weathering

In this post I will work on the weathering effects of the color texture, while in the next one I will add scratches and some other remaining details.

The weathering effects that you can observe on the aircraft from WWII era are quite “dramatic”. The paints used in mid-20^th century were not as chemically “stable” as the contemporary coats, thus they could change their hues in few months of intense service. The archival color photos below show an extreme case of this effect (Figure 75‑1):

Figure 75-1 Examples of heavy weathered aircraft

These photos were taken by Frank Sherschel on 14^th November 1942, for the “Life” magazine. The SBD-3s depicted on the pictures belonged to VMSB-241 squadron, stationed at Midway in that time. Marines received these aircraft in July 1942, but all of them were already used before – most probably on the U.S. Navy carriers. I think that in November 1942 these SBDs had accumulated about 10-11 months of the war service. I will use them as an extreme case of the weathering. (It is always good idea to recreate such an ultimate case in the texture, because you can always make your model “newer” by decreasing intensities of the weathering layers. On the other hand, you cannot use more than the 100% of their intensities, thus you cannot make your model “older” than you initially painted).

Creating Textures: Color (Diffuse) Map (1)

The color (also known as “diffuse”) map is the most obvious texture, which you can find on every model for games. In my models it is composed of three separate images: the camouflage, the dirt (stains, soot, etc.), and the markings (national insignia, tactical numbers, warning labels, and all other similar stuff). In this post I will compose the basic camouflage texture.

Some time ago I unwrapped the left side of this model (see this post, Figure 62-3). Now I had to complete this work, creating remaining elements of the right side, and unwrapping them on the UVMap layout. The final result looks like the model in Figure 74‑1:

Figure 74-1 The right side of the model, mapped on the UVMap layout

For the precise mapping, I used here the color grid image, which I already used in my previous posts. Note the different square colors on the left and right wing, as well as the different letters on the right and the left tailplane.