Greetings All,

I hesitate to post this- but I hope that you all, whom I hold in high esteem, will understand the spirit in which it is proffered. The bulk of skins are dedicated to the most famous & best archived A/C (re: 109s, 190s, P-51s, Spits, etc.).

Has there ever been any discussion amongst this great group of skinners to perhaps more systematically address the skinning of the 'lesser' known aircraft? I'm just curious as to whether this group has considered trying to fill many of the voids that exist in the vast library of A/C available to the IL-2 community.

In asking this question I do understand that:
- making a satisfactory template for an A/C is no easy task & very time-consuming
- each skinning artist has their own area of interest

I was just curious as to whether or not the topic of purposely expanding the range of skins had been discussed in your group.

As always, I am very grateful for anything that is produced. I do not mean by this inquiry to make any complaint whatsoever. My question is merely has the expansion of the A/C addressed ever been discussed in your roundtable?

Just curious...and thank you all for your gracious time & efforts- it is amazing work & greatly appreciated!

schwarzehund/ Greg

Hi Greg,

surely a thing worth a discussion. If you compare download numbers of such
'lesser known' aircraft with those you mentioned you will note a significant
difference. Furthermore in most cases those lesser known aircraft weren't
much involved in action, production numbers weren't high oftenly.
Seeing all this it is understandable most skinners don't spend their time
researching such aircraft (oftenly not as well documented), creating templates and skins
and finally earning less or even no interest (download numbers, comments etc.) for their work - no matter how excellent the skins are.

ATB
Armin

Howdy Greg,

Hold us in high esteem? Naw, mate! We are fans of IL-2, just like you. We just have a knack for mucking about with things in Photoshop or GIMP. Honestly, given some time and practice you could do all that we do. As for the little known birds and skinning them...

- Making a template can take weeks or months, but it depends on what the public wants to see and have for their d/l collection. If you think of this website as a business, we want to appeal to the most amount of people we can. From my perspective, I want to make skins that people want, or that are willing to be vocal and post their thoughts on the website. I'm currently updating and revising a LA-5 template to produce skins that you had requested earlier. Not because there is a major drive for them, but because it's interesting to me personally...why haven't more people created skins for this pivotal aircraft for IL-2?

Well, hell mate. When the template is done, I hope to have some fantastic, historically accurate aircraft for you to download. Because we are a small site, we can cater to our fans and their specific wants and desires.

As a side note, Crazyflak from SAS sent me some stuff for the P-61 Black Widow. Nobody is skinning for it, because there isn't a template...yet I'm going to change that.

As for your concerns about 'getting in trouble'...f*@k NO!

Seriously, people like you let us know what we are missing. We all too often get focused on what we want to make as skinners and lose sight of what fans of IL2 want. We really don't pay enough attention to the 'Skinning Request' section of our forums...that has to change. I've never been very good at custom requests...but I'm damn sure going to try.

Tell us what YOU want to have for your collection of skins and we'll do our best to make it happen...and chances are you'll get the first d/ls for the skins via PM before they go public. I've never released any of my 'personal request' skins to the general public, but if you are okay with it...let me know what you want mate.

Hell...you and I have been exchanging comments for years now. Let me know what you want, and we'll get to work on it.

RDDR and I talk several times a week via Skype...and with Duggy at least once a week. We always share pictures and information about odd aircraft and I make a list. I have close to 20 aircraft on my 'to do' list of templates to update. Keep in mind, I am a template maker...which is different from skinning. I make the tools...and I sometimes get the chance to make the skins. I'm 90% of the time working on templates, and only 10% of the time making skins. Which is why I only produce 10 skins a year...when compared to RDDR or Boelcke who create 100 skins a year.

Like I said before...TELL US what you want and we'll make it happen. That is a personal guarantee from me, from one M4T refugee to another.

Cheers, mate!

Keith

Thanks for the informative responses, guys. I was just curious to see if there were any sort of general strategies for your group or if it was more a "Band of Gypsies" (salute to Jimi Hendrix & his gang..hehe) each following their own path.

I certainly appreciate A&A's offer to the community to try and create skins when requested- it is very generous & a huge opportunity to get some attention to a particular project by the top guys around, IMHO. I am very much looking forward to your efforts with the La-5, Keith. I would certainly encourage you to make any of these skins available to the community- I'm sure there are plenty of others who would be interested in having them.

The P-61 project sounds intriguing as well. I had an opportunity to see one up close at the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Annex at Dulles/DC a few years ago:

http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?id=A19510044000

It is a big, beautiful, sinister-looking machine. Can't wait to see what will come from your template work!

Thanks again for your comments & generosity. Keep up the great work- we'll be looking forward to seeing whatever you guys are up to next. I will certainly let you know if there are any specific A/C that I get a serious itch for...ATB, Greg