Mikey's Repaint Links

[darrenvox]

awesome!!

[chasensfo]

Mikey, as always, you are such a huge portion of why these retro flightplans have life. Thank you.

[mikeblaze]

So, in spirit with my not having too much time for painting right now, this fleet took four weeks, about the same amount of time it took to crank out five big US carriers over winter break, lol. This is TEJ Taesa, with Puebla and Taesa Cargo thrown in. Eduardo did a great thing with the 1993 fleet, part of his huge 1993 all-Mexico project, but the 1998 yellow-tops, 767s, some 727/737 hybrids, and some one-off ATRs and MDs didn't come until later, so I added those in. I really liked doing this fleet because it was in actuality Mexico's third-largest carrier in that time period, behind MXA/AMX.

Speaking of MXA, I have three out of the seven 1990s base patterns done in large-scale monochrome template fashion, the hardest ones first. Some of them appear in different colors, but I want to try to get the template patterns done by March. AMX is actually about a third done. I did a 1970-1990 (orange) AMX fleet about fifteen years ago that still stands other than my modern metal technique, AIG DC-9s, and a couple of crisper titles here and there. I estimate these two to be a late spring release, along with the aforementioned DAL/EAL projects.

Never fear, that great set of MXA A320s in the 1990s pattern tail will be coming to FAIB models near you very soon, plus the rest of the fleet. I did the MXA final scheme last year for FAIB/AIG models, for my own personal use, since I loved every scheme MXA came with after the 70s stripe up to their unfortunate demise, and they still exist at my MMMX. That final scheme will show up in my MXA release as well.

Enjoy the pictures, everything is live on the website.

:{)

[mikeblaze]

[mikeblaze]

[mikeblaze]

Actually, MXA had ten patterns I can find (not counting color variants), and they're all done now in HD template monochrome format.... :{)

[mrjf777]

Thank you so much Mr Pearson for making my AI traffic so beautiful and unique. Thanks to your great repaints, I enjoy doing my plane spotting in my FS2004 simulator. Since I like to live in the past, I could not ask for more. 

[sunking]

Latin America has been neglected in the FS World for many, many years. Therfore it's a very good news to see the first previews now of an airline company not to known to the younger generations. I remember them operating many charters in the 1990s to Europe, with the peak around 1996 and just around the time Birgenair flight ALW301 crashed shortly after take off from POP in February of that year. After that tourists became feared of such small, unknown airlines, started to prefer Condor, LTU and the likes, which in turn accelerated the downturn for airlines like TAESA.

Thank you very much for all the effort 👌

Kind regards.

[chasensfo]

YES!!! Man it'll be so cool to fly into 90s MMMX in MSFS when all is said and done with all these modern paints.

[cgold]

Taesa is one of my favorite Mexican retro carriers of the 90's. They had a Lockheed Jetstar painted in company colors, but I'm not sure if it ever flew. They used several retired airframes as "novelty" booking offices. It also had Walmart titling on the fuselage! They also operated a G-159 for DHL as well. Thank you mikeblaze for covering this fleet so wonderfully!

[mikeblaze]

I have the picture of the JetStar, I hadn't decided whether to paint it or not since it is basically a static object. However, TEJ corporate also operated a Learjet 25 in 1993, and I do have a picture of that one, so I may go ahead and do both.

:{)

[mikeblaze]

Small update, no new releases this week, but.....

MXA is done except for 757s, Comet and DC-6s, should be on the website by next weekend. Illustrative numbers for paints, the 722 package has 38 serials, and most are individual variants with all of the tail pattern/color combinations. The A320 package has 30 variants, same deal. I've gone to the end of the airline, so 762/763/A332 are there as well. With F100, A318/319, and 721 plus everything else, I am about 110 paints into this so far. Like I said before, once I got the patterns sorted out, it went pretty fast.

There was an unintentional easter egg in the TEJ 757 package. I accidentally left a new AVA 1980s-1990s (AIG) 757 paint in the folder, copied it from another project (any guesses, lol?) to start the TEJ paints last month. I just removed it from the G-drive file, so you will have to be patient and wait for me to finish up AVA, now that the cat is out of the bag for that one. If you got it early, you can retire another AIA 757.

:{)

[mikeblaze]

This post is a clarification to address some feedback comments on the website. Since I rely on feedback to make package corrections, all feedback has been positive, helpful, and welcome, thank you for that. I present a mini-batch of FAQs which may clarify the direction I am painting. If anything makes me sound like a total dick, my apologies, it's not meant to be that, it's just the practicalities of the hobby.

1. Why don't I paint for more freeware models? I don't do multi-format painting anymore and I have never done multi-model painting for the same paint batch, it's redundant work that jams up my time for models and sims I no longer use. I focus on 64-bit exclusively, and I paint what I feel to be the most contemporary models with the least frustrating paint kits. This single item is why I choose to paint FSPXAI 767s instead of the (excellent) FAIB 767s with their very challenging paint kits. If Hiroshi had done FSPXAI 747s, I would be all-in, lol. Also, FSPXAI are 64-bit native models rather than converted with MCX, so that covers the ABWB (Airbus Wide-Body) mob and 777s. Like I said, practical, as the FSPX A32x is no more difficult to paint then the FAIB A32x, so I don't have an issue keeping with the freeware option there. FSPXAI models are roughly $1 each for what you pay for the various packages and what you get, a great low-cost value IMHO. I paid for mine before I found out I could have probably brokered a beta-test deal for free models, lol.

2. Why don't I paint for FS9/FSX-specific models and textures anymore? FS9 is old enough to drink alcohol, and FSX is old enough to vote, enough said. In the 32-bit world, shadow/shine effects were part of the texture, so using those previous paints in modern PBR (physical-based rendering) environments over-does the effects. For the die-hards of 32-bit sims, converting my paints back to bitmap is feasible if you know what you're doing (I'm not offering a tutorial, lol), but they will look a little bland in the 32-bit environment as far as shadow/shine. The way I look at it, if you are still using FS9 or FSX, the tons of older models and existing paints should be good enough for muster.

3. Why don't I paint the AIG models (ABWB)? While some of the paint kits are out now, I have some opinion-based issues with some of the narrative around that. Some individuals who are on the design/artist side made some pretty rude remarks in forum threads about not sharing HD paint kits because then every "blithering idiot" can paint their models (that was a quote, BTW). While I do agree that it's the modeler/artist prerogative to share/not share source materials, I don't agree with the elitism that the comments reflect. On the other side, I do side with the modelers/artists, since I live in both of those worlds, and sometimes there is a perceived expectation from fellow hobbyists that just because I create a thing I should be obliged to share it. Like I said, just the practicalities of the hobby, not looking down at anybody.

I have shared a lot over time (I feel), and I wouldn't do it without the vast amount of support, gratitude, collaboration, and mentoring that I have been privileged to receive from engaging with you all in this crazy, nerdy, geeky hobby.

Do me one favor, and let's not get wrapped around this particular axle on my (repaint) thread. If you agree/disagree strongly enough to comment, just PM me or email me.

More to come, as usual....

:{)

[mikeblaze]

I deleted the post with the MXA A320 preview, since that was a direct-upload picture, and the web-link for those aircraft should be up by next weekend. Just doing my part to conserve cgold's website storage space, lol...... :{)

[mikeblaze]

As promised......

A note about the green tails. MCX distorts the colors a little bit depending on the material color of the base model (modelers will understand what I'm talking about), which is why I was faked into thinking I had picked up a color-match error (which I didn't).