This is the most important part of any paint scheme, once it is completed you do not need to worry about the tedious parts like alignment issues. However, this section is indeed the most labourious and frustrating.. so please bare with me. Once this section is completed I promise it gets more fun.

To create the general lines we want to have access to the entire length of the paint scheme (to get the big orange arc). First of all we'll start by creating a new document, select the size as being 1024x768 under "Preset" in the dialogue box that opens.

Now, select one of the paint scheme layers from your paint kit, seeing as though they are all the same it does not matter which. Just as you dragged it onto paint kit.. you'll now drag it off into the new document you created. Do so by having the new document in view, clicking and holding on the paint scheme layer and dragging it over.

You should have something like below, if the paint scheme doesn't fit as you would like you can increase the canvas size by going to Image - Canvas Size. Change cm to pixels (if it isn't already set to it). Then type in an increased number depending on which measurement you wish to change and press ok.

Now we want to make sure we have the correct colour selected. Although changeable throughout, it is best to select a colour and stick to it to avoid unnecessary time consumption.

To pick a colour select the Eye Dropper Tool (I). Once again if the Eye Dropper is not selected click and hold on it in the tool bar, when the drop down appears select the Eye Dropper.

Set your paint schemes layer back to 100% and click on a spot that appears to have the least amount of light effecting it.

This is the colour I have chosen. If you wish to manually put in the colour code for the above colour, click on the box in the toolbar (appears orange in the above picture). This will produce the above window, where it says "R", "G" and "B" input the following numbers 230, 97 and 44 respectfully and press ok.

Before we start painting you always want to add a new layer. This is a good habit to get into.. I've had my fair share of annoyances by forgetting to add a layer and ending up with merged parts. We add a new layer by pressing the circled button on the layer palette, if you wish to rename this layer double click on the "layer 1" portion. Press enter or click off it once the rename is complete.

We are now going to create the large curve, which is the main part of the scheme. We'll use a path for this, which is a series of connected nodes. Paths are very useful as they are fully editable at any time, they can also be shaped in to literally anything you want. They can also be endlessly resized and as they aren't actually a graphic the end product does not become distorted.

Select the Paths tab in the layer palette and just like when we added a new layer above, add a new path.

Now select the Pen tool (P), once again if it is anything other than this tool click and hold on it until the drop down appears and select it. Click at the point on the left where the curve begins, a small black box should appear at that point like below. This is the node in the path.

This next maneuver is hard to explain. Click on a part of the curve on the tail, before where it curves the other way (see below). Without letting go of the mouse button after clicking drag the cursor upwards and to the right. Do so until the line is aligned with the right side portion of the curve (as below). You're probably thinking that its not a very snug fitting curve.. bare with me.

Now click and hold on the on the Pen Tool icon in the tool bar. Select the Add Anchor Point Tool. What we're going to do now is add another node along the path line in order to reshape the curve. Once the tool is selected click on a place before the curve peaks.

Place your cursor over this newly added node, the cursor should turn into a small white arrow. Click and hold, then drag the node down so it fits well with the curve line.

We can make the right side of the curve fit the image better by clicking on the small black dot on the end of the line, coming from the right hand side node. Move it slightly right and maybe up .Remember that the image is on a curved fuselage and so you maybe not be able to get an exact fit.

If any of the original nodes aren't correctly placed then you can click on them just like you clicked on the above black box, but instead on the node itself and move it.

Return to your layers palette (by clicking on the tab). Make sure a blank layer is selected and return to the paths palette and make sure the path you just create is selected. Select the Brush Tool (b) and select the thickness as being 1 pixel from the drop down arrow top left of the screen.

Look at the bottom of the paths palette, there are 6 buttons. Hover over them and they will display what they do. Click the one second from the left (Stroke path with brush) You should now see your path have an orange line (the colour you selected) following it.

Add a new path and select the Pen Tool (P) once again. As before, if it isn't selected click and hold the drop down then select it.

To finish the curve on the tail simply click where your curve finished and click on the end of the curve which should on the leading edge of the tail. Select the layers palette, add a new layer and repeat what you did above in regards to stroking the path.

If once the path is stroked it is a pixel or two out you could either adjust the node placing and try again or move the layer. To move the layer pixel by pixel, select the layers palette, make sure the layer you wish to move is select. Select the Move Tool (V) then press and hold crtl and use the arrow keys.

Remove all the template paint scheme layers and you should have something that looks like this, on two layers:

Merge both of these layers by clicking on one, then hold down Crtl and click on the other one. Then press Crtl and E (alternatively right click and select Merge Layers towards the bottom).

Then once again drag over this layer onto your paint kit and align it approximately with one of the pieces of fuselage. (I have placed it on the middle piece in the below picture)

Duplicate this layer by right clicking it in the layers palette and selecting Duplicate Layer. Do this again and move each one to the other portions of the paint kit.

To cover up the curve that flows onto the tail, click the Add Layer Mask button which is at the bottom of the layer palette (third from left).

A layer mask works in grey scale and the shade of grey instructs it how heavily to produce the mask (100% black making it invisible). Layer masking is good because it isn't actually removing what you are masking just covering it with an invisible blanket, which means you can reveal parts at any point (by selecting white and painting over).

The box to the right on the layer is the mask, if you wish to edit the mask in the future you need to click on it.

Swap the colour by clicking on the little arrow by the colour boxes (so you don't get rid of your orange) and select black by clicking on the colour and choosing it in the colour palette. Paint on the parts you wish to cover up which are on the tail, you should see it disappear.

Add the curve to the tail by duplicating one of your template layers (one of the fuselage ones so that the tail is intact). Extract the tail part by selecting the Move Tool (V) and click on the layer, dragging it across the screen so the tail part comes into view. Select the Marquee Tool (M), using the Rectangular Marquee Tool draw a box around the tail. Then either go to Select - Inverse or press Shift+Crtl+I. This will inverse your selection so the outside of your tail is selected, then press delete to remove it. Use the Move Tool (V) to place it approximately. Then like before, duplicate the paint scheme line layer and move it into the correct place so it follows the curve of the tail. It doesn't matter much at this time whether it is exactly place.. just as long as it's close as possible.

You should also add a layer mask to this layer so only the tail part of the line is displayed.

By removing the paint scheme template layers you should be left with your creation, which should something like below:

Note: I also added the tail curve as you can see, this was done by placing the tail part of the real image on the tail and increasing its scale, exactly like we did with the rest of the template layers.

Save the psd.

You can get the completed psd: here

Now would be a good time to make the "My Travel" logo required for the fore end of the fuselage.

The image I will be using can be obtained here (right click and "save as")

Open the image up inside your application. First all we'll duplicate the background layer, disable the original background layer and lower the opacity on the new layer.. like so:

This is done as the background layer is locked for editing and we lower the opacity so we can see what we are creating properly.

You should have something like this, the checkering is the background of the sheet showing through.

We are going to make the logo out of a mixture of vector and raster graphics, as the logo will be far bigger than what we need we do not worry about scaling issues (otherwise it would be made entirely of vector graphics).

Select the Ellipse Tool (U) by clicking and holding on it, then selecting it from the drop down box.

Have your orange colour still selected so the shape you make is produced in the correct colour. Now click and hold the cursor over the top left part of the shape of the real image. It doesn't matter at all if it is not the correct scale/dimensions.

As you can see my first attempt was not perfect, the right side of the shape does not fit the image.

At this point reduce the opacity of this shape to about 70% so you can see what you're working with.

Select the Direct Selection Tool (A). once again if it isn't ready for selection click and hold on it.

Once this tool is selected click on the outline of your shape (the path).

Four nodes should appear, one on each side. By clicking on the node with the Direct Selection Tool and holding the mouse button you are able to move it. By moving it you will redraw the graphic you created without loss of quality. You can also edit the curvature of the line running into the node by clicking on the little dot on the end of the lines and dragging it. Use these methods in order to make the shape fit the image. If you still find it difficult to mate up the two you can also add nodes to the path by selecting the Add Anchor Point tool, this is found in the drop down from the Pen Tool (P). Add anchor points by clicking along the path.

As we are going to draw the inner ellipse we'll need to select that blue colour. Swap your colour (using the double ended arrow) so the colour that isn't the orange is selected.

Select the Eye Dropper Tool (I) and click on an area that best generalises the colour. Alternatively if you could find any images by going to the particular airlines website then use those. However for this tutorial I used the following colour combination: R:31 G:49 B:115.

Reselect the Ellipse Tool (U) and draw the inner shape like before. Set the opacity, as before, to about 70%.

Use the Transform - Scale function and the above node placement method in order to get your ellipse matching the template.

Your layer palette should now look like this:

Below is my finished rendition of the ellipse:

Increasing the opacities of the layers back to 100%, you should have something that looks like this:

With the shape made, now we'll move on to the text.

In order to avoid confusion, select the template layer (the layer we are making the selection on).

Select the Magic Wand (W) and set the tolerance to 30. The tolerance level determines the similarity or difference between the colour of the pixels selected. Meaning, the lower the tolerance the more refined the selection will be.

Now, click on an area inside the "M" of the text.

The "M" part of the text should have become selected, now click on the rest of the white lettering.

Add a new layer via the layer palette, this layer will be for the text.

Making sure this layer is selected, select the Paint Bucket Tool (G).

As it is unavoidable, pick either of the colours to have (by swapping them) and set one of them to white, by clicking on the colour's box.

Click inside one of the letters of your selection. White should now have been spread across your entire selection, like below:

Press Crtl+D to deselect the selection.

Remove all the layers apart from the ones you have made and you should have something like this:

(resized down)

All that is now left is to clean up the lettering, the parts which could not be selected.. etc. Keep all the template layers hidden, all we need now is your logo layers. With the text layer still selected, zoom up close using the Zoom Tool (Z).

If you look around at a high magnification you should see parts which appear to have been cut out of your text, these were parts which were covered with windows and other things.

For example this is at the top of the "Y":

These type of corrections are easy to do. Add a new path and exactly like when you did the large paint scheme curves, add your first node just before the missing part and then just after. Shape the curve in order to follow trajectory.

Like so:

Just like before, add a new layer and return to your path. Select the Brush Tool (B) and set it for 1 pixel width. Now "stroke the path with brush" (second in from the left at the bottom of the path palette). If the layer is out by one or two pixels move it by selecting the Move Tool (V), press Crtl and use the arrow keys.

Fill in the bits inside the text with just the Brush Tool (B).

Work through any other missing parts in a similar way.

You can now merge all the layers together into the text. Select the text layer, press Crtl and go through your layer palette selecting all the layers that have your corrections on. Once all are selected press Crtl+e.

You should now have one smart looking My Travel logo.

Now to add the final touch, the orange ball inside the "Y".

Like before, add a new layer and use the Magic Wand (W) with the same tolerance setting. Select the template layer once again and click on the orange ball.

With the selection, click back onto your blank layer. Select the Paint Bucket Tool (G) and with the orange colour selected, click inside the selection.

Press crtl+d to select it.

It is advisable that you save this logo as a psd (from the file type drop down when you save) and keep it with your paint kit psd.

You've now completed the My Travel logo, time to continue with the repaint.

Add a layer folder (group) to your logo's layer palette, it is the third button from the right at the bottom. You will be prompted to give a name "My Travel Logo" will suffice.

One by one add the layers to the folder in the order they were made. Do this by clicking on the layer and dragging it over the folder, it should disappear into it. Display the contents of the folder by clicking the small arrow on it.

We do this so it is easy to move the logo around but but at the same time keeping its flexibility incase we need to change something later on.

Have your repaint kit ready, then once again click and drag the folder (just like dragging a layer) into the paint kit. It should transfer all the parts of the logo.

Make sure the folders opacity is set to around 50% and move it (using the Move Tool (V) )so it is positioned over the template's My Travel logo.

With the layer folder still selected go to Edit - Transform - Scale. The (hopefully) familiar box should appear around the logo allowing you to manipulate the size. Hold down shift and drag one of the corners inwards so it more or less matches the size of the template's. To move the logo place your cursor over any part of it so it changes into a black arrow then click and drag. Change the tool and click apply to make the changes.

Set the Opacity on the folder back up to 100% and remove the template layer to observe your work..

Save the psd.

Now lets fill in the orange parts of the fuselage.

The method I will use is not normally the method I would generally use, however for ease of use and to avoid confusion I will use it.

First, select the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) (if it isn't selected once again click and hold to display the drop down and choose if from the list).

Select the layer that contains the curve.

Draw a diagonal line from beginning to end point (like below). Then complete the selection by adding the 2 other sides (clicking when you wish to make a point). You should make a triangle, the selection will be properly made once it starts to be an animated moving line. A small tip is to make the vertical line as far up as you want, then double click. This automatically joins your last set point to the beginning.

b

Select the Paint Bucket Tool (G), select it via clicking and holding if not visible. With your orange colour set as your working colour, click somewhere within the selection.

It will fill the selection, press Crtl+D to cancel the selection.

Select the Magic Wand Tool (W) and click in the gap remaining. It should select the entire gap.

Now select the Paint Bucket Tool (G) and fill it with the orange colour, then fill it again. The reason for filling it the second time is that it doesn't always reach the outer edges fully. If you feel it looks adequate with one fill then leave it at that.

Cancel the selection using Crtl+D.

Work through each part of the curve using the technique above. Once finished, you should have something looking like this:

This is what my layer palette looks like:

Now for the first mile stone.

Select one of your curve layers and click on the left drop down box (should be saying "Normal"). Select Multiply from the list.

Work through each layer (including the logo layer folder, select just the folder to reflect the mode change throughout the folder).

If orange goes over leading edge of the tail, you can either use the Marquee Tool (M) or Magic Wand (W) in order to create the selection to remove it.

Now would be a good time to check out our creation in Flight Sim (or FS Repaint for that matter).

Go to File - Save as.

You will be greeted with a window with the following boxes, make sure they match what is shown below. Then save the bmp into a location of your choice.

After hitting "save" another box will display. Make sure you have selected File Format as Windows and Depth as 32bit. Press ok to complete the save process.

Now would be a good idea to save your psd.

Minimise your painting program and open DXTBmp.

Once open go to File - Open and navigate to your bmp then open it.

For the time being we do not need to worry about alpha channels, add a blank alpha channel by clicking on the box second from the right.

The alpha channel box should turn into pure white.

Go to File - Save as - Extended Bitmap

The save window will open up. Select your bmp for the file name and the type should be "Extended 32bit 888-8" for the purpose of this tutorial.

This is the point where you can select to format it as DXT3 to increase system performance (click the drop down and select if you wish to do so) but otherwise we're just going to look at the paint scheme.

Press Save, you'll be prompted to overwrite and click yes.

Now all that is required is for you to place it into your paint schemes texture folder. Use the default paint scheme with the POSKY 757 (for the purposes of this tutorial) and name the original bmp "posky757fuse1_told" so if you wish to revert back to the proper paint scheme you can.

Now have a look at how your paint scheme looks in Flight Sim.

Here's what mine looks like:

This is the first time you've seen it in FS so its important not to be too critical. As you can see from this, the curve between the fuselage and tail (although looking good) is misaligned. It is also very likely the curve between the 2 pieces of fuselage will be misaligned.

Before continuing, make sure the fuselage pieces are aligned correctly, do this by clicking on the layer you wish to move, select the Move Tool (V) and press Crtl and use the arrow keys to control the direction of the layer pixel by pixel. In most cases this will only require vertical movement of a few pixels. Make sure to check each time you move it, in Flight Sim (now you know why using FS Repaint is a good idea..) Remember, you'll have to recreate the bmp and convert it through DXTBmp each time

Move the rear fuselage first (get it lined up with the tail). Remember how many pixels you moved it by (count in your head.. yes simple but it works!) and move the other half of the fuselage in the same direction by the same number of pixels. Verify that the seam between the fuselage pieces still matches (repeat the steps above to get them aligned if they do not).

Here you can see the amount I have moved it by rearwards and then the same for the first part of the fuselage.

Once happy with what your modifications, save the psd.

Now to complete the tail.

Download this image (right click "save as") and save it where the rest of your paint scheme images are.

Open up the image into Photoshop and drag it onto your paint scheme psd (using the Move Tool (V))

Place it at the top of your layers palette, flip it horizontally by going to Image - Transform - Flip Horizontal then align it (still using the Move Tool (V)) to align with your curve. It may not align exactly but close is good enough.

Open your "My Travel" logo psd (there was a reason for saving it!).

Locate the layers that hold the text and the orange ball, link them together by clicking on, one holding Crtl and then clicking on the other. Complete the linkage by clicking on the link button, first on the left at the bottom of the layers palette.

You should see they are linked by the chain graphic displayed next to them. Clicking and dragging one will move the other too, drag these two layers (using the Move Tool (V) onto your paint scheme psd.

Move them to the top of your layer palette (above the newly added tail image) and position the two layers next to the tail.

As we won't be needing the "Travel" part of the text, click on the text layer and just remove it using the Eraser Tool (E).

Once removed, make sure the layers are still linked by looking for the linkage graphic, then go to Image - Transform - Flip Horizontal.

Then go to Image - Transform - Scale, this should now look familiar to you. Resize the "My" (should include the orange ball as well) to the approximate size on the image.

Hold shift then click and drag one of the corners inwards to make the

Move the object so it covers the image's "My". Here you can make fine adjustments to the size in order to get the best fit possible, it isn't vital they match exactly.

Deactivate the real image layer, then flip the two layers ("My" text and orange ball) as we flipped the real image when we first placed it onto the psd. Have a quick look at the fruits of your labour.

Reactivate the real image layer, now we'll use it to create the blue inner curve.

Add another new layer this will contain the blue inner curve, place it at the top of the palette.

Select the "Paths" tab along the top of the layer palette and at a new path.

Select the Pen Tool (P) and verify it is in "Paths" mode by looking top left, under the menu bar:

Click on the beginning of the curve then click on the end of the curve, creating a straight line between the two.

With the Pen Tool still selected move the cursor of the path line, you should see a small addition symbol appear. This will apply new nodes to the path when clicked. Add new nodes along the path like shown in the following image (red circles):

Select the Direct Selection Tool (A) (click and hold and select from drop down if not ready to use).

Click and hold on the middle node and drag it to just below the peak of the curve.

Place the top node half way along the first part of the curve as shown below:

Click and move the handles in order to shape the curve in between the two nodes to match it with the real image. This will take some practice so don't be surprised if you don't get it right first time.

Place the last node half way between the middle node and the end of the curve.

Once again click and drag the displayed handles (you will likely need to lengthen the handle) to make it fit the curve.

Once you've got to here, the difficult bit concerning the tail is over.

Like when you made the fuselage curve, make sure you have your blank layer selected. Go to the "Paths" tab, have your Brush Tool (B) selected with 1 pixel width. Also have your dark blue colour active, you can get it from the My Travel logo on the fuselage with the Eye Dropper tool (I) (you'll need to select the logo layer in order to get the colour then return to the blank layer).

Once you have completed the above steps, stroke the path by pressing on the button second on the left at the bottom of the paths palette.

Hide the real image in the layers palette and have a look at the result.

Now would be a good time to save the psd and have a look at the tail in Flight Sim. The reason for this is so you can check the placement of the curve, now would be the time to make modifications before you continued.

By looking at this image, you can see although the top of the curve is placed well the bottom of it does not finish at the correct point. We need to move the bottom part of it lower down without moving the rest.

Remove the dark blue curved line layer, then add a new one. Just like when you made the path, we're going to edit it.

Click on the Paths tab in the layers palette.

Then click on the path containing the curve. Select the Direct Selection Tool (A) and click on the path.

The nodes should appear and you will be able to click on the node at the end of the curve, then drag it down a little and along a little so it meets up with the grey leading edge strip.

This is what mine now looks like:

Stroke the path like you did before by selecting the Brush Tool (B) and clicking the Stroke path with brush button in the paths tab.

Once again save the psd, save it as a bmp and convert it then view it in Flight Sim.

This is how mine now looks in Flight Sim, comparing it to the real photo I think its close enough to accept.

Back onto the paint scheme, select the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) and draw a rough shape inside the curve to fill.

Make sure you have the curve layer still selected and fill the selection with the dark blue using the Paint Bucket Tool (G).

Deselect the current selection by pressing Crtl+D.

Select the Magic Wand tool (W) and click in the clear area. A selection containing the remaining space should be made.

Once again select the Paint Bucket Tool (G) and fill the area twice (2 clicks), press Crtl+D to deselect the selection.

If there are any small bits left you can paint over them by using the Brush Tool (B)

Select the Magic Wand (W) and set the Tolerance level to 5.(via the box under the menu when the Magic Wand is selected).

Select the background layer (which will probably be at the bottom of your layer palette).

Click on the grey leading edge of the tail and reselect your blue curve layer.

Press delete and it should remove the blue area from the grey part of the tail, leaving you flush line with it.

You should now have something looking like this:

Add a layer group above your tail layers.

Name it something appropriate like "Tail", then one by one drag all of the layers relating to the tail into it in order.

Duplicate this layer group and hide the original. The original folder will be used for backup purposes and for transferring it onto the other side of your fuselage.

.

Merge the duplicated layer group by either right clicking it and selecting "Merge group" or by going to Layer - Merge group (or by pressing Crtl+E)

Set this layer's mode to Multiply by the laying mode drop down on the layer palette.

That should complete the tail, save the psd and save it as a bmp, convert it and check it out in Flight Sim.