Still skinning my planes....this one was done from scratch...took about 4 days...when I 'should' have been drawing....

@Jafo looks real good what program do you use to skin them is it based on a 3d model if so do you wrap it with texturesor  simply paint it directly ?

FSX plane skinning is [mostly] an extensive series of  DDS Alpha channel 'bitmaps' [compressed - DXT5] or extended 32 bit bitmaps 888-8, combined with additional bump-mapped images and specular shine images.  That plane has 130 bitmaps.

Tools used are simply PSP6 and a proggy called DXTBmp used for converting between formats.  Some models have 'paintkits' in PSD format with several layers for rivets, panel lines, etc so I also use Photoshop Elements [2] for those.

Texture aligning can be at INDIVIDUAL pixel level, and whether it's a bezier curve or a push brush, the closest thing to a 'filter' is applying overall changes to colour saturation or lightness, etc.

The texture 'mapping' of the models varies and many induce 'distortion' when 'flattened' to 2D...so that requires 'practice' to overcome....

Huh? What you say? I don't know how you did it but I would love to have it. How much? Name your price?

The plane is a commercial addon to FSX so some of the 130 bmps belong to Lotus Sim.  The modded ones amount to 9, with a few tweaks here and there on others....so 'mostly' it's not distributable...

There's 8 of the main images that make up the skin...each is 1024x1024 with an alpha.

The wall is another skin....camo more reminiscent of Vietnam vintage [unlikely as its first flight was '69 - and it's Russian]...

ohh ok get it, im just asking sine the results look really nice
here is something i have done today I might make a wallpaper out of it.I tryd to conecentate on a clear ice effect for the text the background was just set to get a bit more frost feeling to it and i might also enhance the ice text and add some cracks to it...

Current on my first theme , still lots to do but its been fun so far 

Love the vivid color with the black.

I forgot all about this thread. There's a lot of good stuff here still.

A new rainmeter skin I am working on. I am going for simple and usable. What do you think?

Nice work, JC. You do the minimalist skins so well

Just so you know, we're posting in this thread now https://forums.wincustomize.com/417521. Same thing, just for 2012.

Thanks for the heads up Starcandy.

I have just finished this wallpaper its called Diamond Earth

Sweet! I want it, gallery or no.

That's a nice abstract piece, Shaunna. Ya' done good!

yep its still in moderation Oh man  I hope it gets through I have a good feeling about this one

Thanks Starcandy yeah it just fell into place just using apophysis  and I didn't use any globes or  use psp  as I am only on my emachine which only has 1gb memory and 160 GB HDD, and N450 intel atom not too bad for a small laptop .... altho I can't wait for starkers to fix my main PC

And so you should, my dear.

Oh, well in that case.... Oi, Starkers, fix Shaunna's main PC! 'Cause if this is what she can turn out on a piddly laptop, I can't wait to see what she can do on something with proper grunt to it.

And just a tip for you if you're going to be using Apophysis: Be selective in what you think is good work. There are lots of people working with fractals and such, to the extent that they can become very samey IMO. I personally believe, however, you can, and will, make stuff that stands out from the crowd, especially if your latest is anything to go off. Best of luck with it, Sweetie.

thanks for the tip Darl, for sure I try to get what I call Love, like  if I like or love something and think that others will too then I will upload and if I feel like  its not the best I try harder to improve it  by asking peoples thoughts and ideas and just by working the fractal I have also been trying to stay away from PSP  as the fractal is and should be the first thing that someone should see . I guess it all comes back to practice makes perfect so practice, practice, thank you for all the suggestions too they help me to make things better

You go girl! We have faith in you Shaunna. Show 'em all how its done.