This section is not necessarily relevant to our repaint, however I decided to include them. The reason being so you can see what kind of effects you can use.. and more importantly, how to do them.
Highlight effect
We start off with a simple highlight of the door, this could be used to differentiate between the fuselage and the door or simply simulate light on it.
Remember before starting to add a new Layer folder and a new layer within it.
So here we have a door, I made a selection using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), from the top of the actual door to about 3/4 of the way down. I could have gone all the way to the bottom but the highlight would not have been visible on the unpainted fuselage.
Make sure your newly added layer is selected. Select the Gradient Tool (G), have white as your colour in use and verify the following gradient is selected.
Click on the left edge of the selection, about in the middle. Hold the mouse button and drag the cursor horizontally a little in to the selection box. Unlike previously we want a sharp gradient and so very little distance is required. Let go of the mouse button and you should hopefully have something like this:
Repeat the above step but this time do it for the top of the selection box, click and drag the cursor vertically down.
Cancel the selection using Crt+D. Now use the Eraser Tool (E) just to eat away at the corners to remove the white from the door frame. Alternatively when making the selection, you could have used the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) to make a more accurate selection. Use the Smudge Tool (R) just to smooth the corners a bit more if required.
Lower the opacity to about 20% and you have one highlight door! Remember to highlight the same sides of objects when doing multiple highlights as they would all be using the same light source.
I'm actually going to keep the door highlight in this repaint.
A slightly different highlight would be to highlight the corner of the door (or surface) To do this, use the above settings and use the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L).
Remember to add a new layer. Select the general area where you wish the highlight to be using the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L)
Then use the Gradient Tool (G), click in the corner where you want the highlight to emanate from and drag the cursor diagonally upwards (or downwards depending on the situation). Vary the dragging distance depending on the size of gradient you want, use the above image as reference.
You should have something similar to this:
Cancel the selection by hitting Crtl+D and lower the opacity to about 25%.
Shading effect
We'll now use the Gradient Tool to do a simple shading effect.
Add a new layer and select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M). For this we'll want to add to the selection so click the appropriate setting.
Start at the bottom of the door, make the rectangular selection by clicking and holding then dragging the cursor. Make the selection up the hinge area and let go of the mouse button. Repeat the same process for the middle section, click above the hinge and make the selection up the second hinge. Finally repeat the above steps to make the final selection above the top hinge.
Select the Gradient Tool (G), this time set black as your active colour. Click on the right side of the selection, hold the mouse button and drag the cursor in only very slightly. Let go of the mouse button and an effect similar to the following should have been produced:
Cancel the selection using Crtl+D and use the Smudge Tool (R) just to soften the edge of the shading at the top. Click at the end of it, hold the mouse button and drag the cursor up following the shape of the door frame. Repeat this a few times until happy, set the layer opacity to about 10% (for this particular situation) and you're done.
Gradients
Another example would be to add a large gradient to a section of the panel, this could be used to define different sections of the fuselage for whatever reason.
First add a new layer. Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) to select the area you wish to highlight. Make sure to select an area actually slightly bigger as you do not want the gradient stopping dead at the edge of your selection, instead you want a smooth transition.
Select the Gradient Tool (G) and for this example have white as your colour in use. Set the gradient type as the following:
Click at the bottom of your selection, where you want the highlight emanating from. Hold the mouse button and drag the cursor vertically up (for this example). Stop at approximately 3/4 up your selection and let go of the mouse button. A gradient similar to the following should have been made:
Cancel the selection using Crtl+D then lower the opacity of the layer to a very low % (for this example).
As well as a highlight to define an area, you can use some shading. Repeat the process as above but instead use black instead of white.
Cancel the selection once again using Crtl+D then lower the opacity of the layer to a very low % (for this example). You now have a nicely defined area:
Panel lines
Now on to panel line highlights. This is a fairly simple effect but can be used well if used in moderation.
Select the Line Tool (U) and verify your colour in use is white. Select the following if not selected:
Set the "weight" or pixels to 1.
Click at the beginning of a panel line, 1 pixel up (or down, depending on your effect). Hold the mouse button and follow the panel line until it reaches a point where it changes direction (or you wish to finish the highlight). In Photoshop hold shift and it will snap to degrees, including totally horizontal and vertical which may help.
With the above setting selected, the Line Tool will use vectors so you do not need to add a new layer.
Duplicate the your newly created line and use the Move Tool (V) to position them on other panel lines.
You could now either keep the layers separate or merge the layers by Crtl+clicking each one you wish to merge. Right click one of the selected layers and click "Merge Layers" (may be different across programs).
Experiment with the opacity but I prefer a very low setting, dependant of course on the actual situation.
This method could also of course be used for panel line shading, using black instead of white .Alternatives to using the Line Tool would be to do a gradient, but once again this depends on the situation.
Rivets
Finally we will look at some rivet highlights and shading. This is probably not suitable for our particular repaint but I included it anyway.
A rivet is a bolt type object that is used to hold sections of an aircraft together, this is why you tend to see them along panel lines. Due to the scales aircraft textures are set to repainters tend to use a pixel per rivet rule. The scale is not necessarily correct (especially in smaller aircraft) and so judgment must be made to how to represent rivets.
However, in this example I shall use the pixel per rivet rule.
Below is a column of rivets, in this case they are white to represent the light hitting the rivet.
The first thing to do is to duplicate the rivets, if they are white then duplicate rivets should be turned back and vice versa. To turn them black, simply invert the colour on the layer by going to Image - Adjustments - Invert (Crtl+I)
If you are wanting to duplicate the rivets of a paint kit that aren't on their own layer then you could either use the Magic Wand (W) to select the rivets. Add a new layer and fill it with your required colour using the Paint Bucket Tool (G). Alternatively you could simply trace the rivets using the Brush or Pencil Tool (B) and painting the tracing on to a new layer.
Now Gaussian Blur the rivet effect layer and not the rivet itself. With the effect layer selected go to Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur, a pixel radius of 0.5 did the trick for this situation.
Use the Move Tool (V) to position the effect layer in to place. Remember to follow the same direction of shading (in this case) or highlight as used on any panel lines or other areas. The most preferred position is the diagonal 1 pixel from the rivet, in this case I placed the layer 1 pixel to the right.
Now lower the opacity of the effects layer to produce an acceptable result. The opacity level will differ from paint to paint as different colours will make it more difficult to see them (black for example).
If possible reduce the opacity of the main rivet layer as well, in the following picture you can see I've lowered it to a very small amount. This is the kind of setting you would want for our type of repaint. Remember that it is better to be subtle than over the top.
This concludes the Highlights and Shading section, now it's time to dirty our aircraft up!
