HSD 10K Uploads Skin Design Contest 24 March to 30 April

[BlackHellHound1]

 
It's been only 2 years, but Haluter's Skin Downloader (or HSD) has reached an amazing 10.000+ unique community-made skins. This milestone could not have been achieved without the amazing artists of this community who made the skins and of course, all the users who downloaded terabytes worth of skins!

This cannot go without a celebration so the HSD team has decided to run a 10K Uploads Skin Design Contest that everyone can participate in!

How the contest will work:
You make a skin design for any vehicle in the IL-2 Great Battles Series. How you make this design is completely up to you. Drawing, MS paint, scrapbook or anything else you can think of!

 

• Submit your design:
  • Make a design in whichever way you like, drawing, MS paint, scrapbook or anything else you can think of!
  • Post your design in this forum thread.
  • You must mention in which category the submission is placed.
  • You may submit only 1 design per category.
  • Designs submitted may not yet exist in IL-2 Great Battles.
  • Historical skins are excluded.
  • Design submission closes on 30 April at 23:59 GMT.
• Categories:
  • Air racing skin.
  • Fictional custom skin.
• The panel of judges are as follows:
  • @Megalax
  • @Melonfish
  • @Raptorattacker
  • @BlackHellHound1
  • @ROCKET_KNUT
  • @=RS=Tango-Sierra
  • The judges may not participate themselves.
• Judging:
  • The 6 Judges / Artists determine the 6 best designs (3 in each category).
  • The 6 @10K Judge / Artist are then assigned 1 skin to make.
  • Which artist makes which skin is determined at random to avoid prejudice during the voting process.
• Prizes: 
  • 1st place: $25 (to spend on IL-2 GB) + Your skin gets made by a skilled IL-2 artist.
  • 2nd place: $16 (to spend on IL-2 GB) + Your skin gets made by a skilled IL-2 artist.
  • 3rd place: Your skin gets made by a skilled IL-2 artist.
  • Both categories have 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.
  • You can only win 1 prize so there will be 6 unique winners.

 

We look forward to seeing all your submissions!

 

This milestone would not have been possible without the help of our Patreon supporters without whom we could not afford to run our server to store all the skins; the beta testers who helped us find bugs and improve HSD; the many community members who helped in countless other ways; and last but not least the IL-2 GB Dev Team who built the game we all love and provided us with our own forum section.

Thank you all for your continued support and we hope HSD will be able to reach the 20K milestone at some point!

The HSD Team!
Haluter
Alonzo
Raptorattacker
BlackHellHound1

Edited April 27, 2023 by BlackHellHound1

[MajorMagee]

Category: Air Racing Skin (you pick the aircraft)

 

[ROCKET_KNUT]

 A Tigercat, YES, YESS, YESSS!!!

Oh hang on, wrong game, dammit. But Tiger-Meeting-Skins... ???

[SCG_Baryonyx]

So this is focused on planes, since the category is air race - I suppose a racing camouflage tank could not qualify for this? xD

 

But a tank is a valid entry for "Fictional custom skin" right? Also, are there any restrictions on designs as in "don't take something from films or novels"? I would suppose so. 

And last question, the "Your skin gets made by a skilled IL-2 artist." reward, does it mean it will become a standard skin in the game or will it still be a custom skin? 

[IRRE_FlyPlatypus]

My dream is to fly a Mad max Fury road plane, like a Fw190 or P47 I think would look great. I have try some prompt on the Bing image creator ( free IA image generator out last week) to get an idea of the design, but it would be a very rusty plane, with some trial painting (maybe a mouth for the P40?). 

 

Obviously it would ba a fictionnal custom skin

 

 

Edited March 25, 2023 by IRRE_FlyPlatypus

[David_4555]

Fictional custom skin entry. Used a profile i found online to "draw" ov er it. Please don't laugh lol. FW-190D-9 "Yellow 4", ex-Luftwaffe captured on the gound by Romanian Forces in 1945 (nothing true about this, however it is worth noting that Romania did capture a number of A/F/G models on their land when switching sides, however they were confiscated by the Soviets before being able to be flown. Also, the modern-day Flug Werk replica's were manufactured in Romania). Inspired by actual Romanian 109's and the MiG-21 LanceR.  

[BlackHellHound1]

On 3/24/2023 at 10:57 PM, SCG_Baryonyx said:

So this is focused on planes, since the category is air race - I suppose a racing camouflage tank could not qualify for this? xD

 

But a tank is a valid entry for "Fictional custom skin" right? Also, are there any restrictions on designs as in "don't take something from films or novels"? I would suppose so. 

And last question, the "Your skin gets made by a skilled IL-2 artist." reward, does it mean it will become a standard skin in the game or will it still be a custom skin? 

 

You can indeed submit skins for all vehicles including tanks for the Fictional Custom Skins.

As it is a design contest, we do like to see unique and interesting designs made by the community. You are not restricted from submitting something from films or novels but your own new creations are more in the spirit of the contest. Of course, interesting and creative modifications of such skins are very welcome!
 

The skins made will be custom skins. Having them as standard ingame would be cool but as this is an HSD contest, they will appear on HSD!

[naukkisgaming]

Fictional custom skin entry. Used an line drawing file to just recolor and draw over it. It's a captured Finnish Airforce variant of P-39 during the continuation war of Finland. It's a simple soviet paintjob with Finnish markings etc. 

 

EDIT: We came up with the idea together with Malixi, who is submitting one design too. Not affiliated with each other though.

Edited March 29, 2023 by naukkisgaming
Clarification of similar idea.

[Malixi]

Entry for the fictional custom skin series.

 

Here's my fictional alternate-history design for the Airacobra. The backstory here is that in June 17th 1944, 3 P-39Qs were captured by Finnish forces after they got lost, ran out of fuel and made a forced landing to Southern Finland, serial numbers 44-2092, 44-3255 and 44-2664. The airframes were never restored to flying condition and thus were never pressed into service by the FiAF. The Finnish Air Force did capture many examples of different Soviet planes earlier in the war, and this design is influenced partially by them and if pressed onto service, there is a good chance that the Finnish Cobra would end up looking like something like this.

 

The livery is a standard green-and-black camouflage used by FiAF at the time with light blue underbelly, and the plane also rocks the standard yellow identification stripes used by FiAF at the time. Spinner has also a white spiral in dark-grey background.

 

Tailnumber is a white 2, and the register number KO-1 follows the standard naming procedure at the time: 2 letters for the model of the airplane (in this case, abbreviation of the finnish nickname for the plane, "Kobra") followed by a number which indicates that in which order airframes of the type have entered service.

 

EDIT: couple of spelling mistakes

 

Edited March 30, 2023 by Malixi
Posted originally wrong image with small errors, now corrected

[David_4555]

 

• Designs submitted may not yet exist in IL-2 Great Battles.

The first post is from 1946, so it doesn't exist yet in GB

[BlackHellHound1]

I want to remind everyone that you must design new skins that do not yet exist in the IL-2 GB series. Whether that be custom skin or official. 
Existing skins for IL-2 GB are not eligible for entry. 

Please create new designs and propose them in any way other than making them for IL-2 GB.

 

We are looking forward to your designs! Keep your creativity going and submit your designs before the end of April!

 

The HSD Team

[David_4555]

Here's my submission for the Air Racing category: Bf-109K-4 "Knight of two kingdoms". The pilot's left-hand side had Romanian colours, the right one has the Belgian ones, to represent my nationalities. Dark grey fuselage with lighter gray stripes - please note that the stripes don't match on the profile and top-down views, as I didn't aim to represent exactly what I had in mind, but rather give a general idea. However I'd like the stripes to be parallel, I don't care about the number however. NOTE: the Bf-109K-4 plans, the roundels and the sword art were found online.

 

Edit: i guess this is more of a parade/aerobatics plane, hopefully it still qualifies in this category. Some of my inspiration came from the Belgian display F-16 "Darth Vader". 

 

 

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by David_4555

[BlackHellHound1]

Oh, another really nice entry!

 

Keep 'm coming people! Love to see what you all come up with!

[Hanu]

Some months ago I tried to combine Ar-234 and a Wasp, as glass-cockpit for the head and narrow hull share some resemblance, but I did not manage to get it to look too promising as I'm more of an engineer than an artist. I wonder if someone could get it to "fly"? My attempt got stuck around here. I guess you get the idea from here. As this is not finished nor published, I guess this will qualify?

[Malixi]

Entry for the Air Racer series: Spitfire Mk. XIV "Mitchell's Marvel".

 

This air racer is inspired by the Supermarine-built S.5,  S.6 and S.6B seaplanes, which were used extensively in the prestigious Schneider Cup in the 1930s, and even won the trophy several times. The racers were designed by a fellow named R. J. Mitchell, who in future would design a fighter plane for the Supermarine company, named the Spitfire, while using many design elements from the previously mentioned air racers - and even the future Griffon engine would lend its name from the nickname of a prototypw S.6 engine designated R-11.

 

Mitchell died in 1937 after a long battle with cancer and thus would never see the Spitfire developing to its full potential and glory. This machine is thus dedicated to his memory as the designer of the some of the finest and technolgically most advanced air racers of the time and also one of the worlds most iconic fighter aircraft ever - and boy does this thing scream speed.

 

The Schneider-Spit is registered as N249 (S.6Bs were N247 and N248) and the racing number is a white 5. The paintjob is metallic/silver base and blue stripes on the fuselage of the aircraft and the rudder has a red-white-blue tricolor scheme, as used by the RAF High-Speed Flight on their Supermarine seaplanes in the Schneider Cup.

[SCG_Baryonyx]

My entry for the contest. Category is Fictional custom skin. 

 

Since there are air-racing skins, why not a ground racer too? This is a GAZ-mm with a design based on 1930s race cars. 

Software used to create this: GIMP.

[KOHTYP]

Here's another option. this time Messerschmitt Bf 109 F-4.

Here is the download link.

 

[BlackHellHound1]

1 hour ago, KOHTYP said:

Here's another option. this time Messerschmitt Bf 109 F-4.

Here is the download link.

 

On 4/14/2023 at 6:01 PM, KOHTYP said:

 Finished, now you can fly.

here is the download link.

 

Sorry but these skins do not qualify. Please read the rules of the competition.

[BlackHellHound1]

Only a few more days!

You only have till Sunday to submit your designs! We would love to see what else you can come up with so send in your designs now!

 

 

Thank you all for your wonderful designs so far! 

Some really creative designs have been sent in. We would love to see some more before the deadline though. 

[JGr2/J5_Mai]

[Raptorattacker]

Whilst I personally think that some  of these skins are brilliant...

 

Please enter with just the skin IDEAS? pleeeease??? 

 

Yours sincerely

 

Rap

 

XXX

Edited April 27, 2023 by Raptorattacker

[LukeFF]

Off-topic posts hidden so as to not clutter up the topic with submissions that are not compliant with the rules of the contest. 

[PivoYvo]

Hello 

At first Great idea for an event.

Am i still able to participate ? (is this event prolonged ?)

worked on an entry for the fictional custom skin but couldn´t finish it, because i became very ill, now i´m mostly recovered and finished my entry picture

if not then maybe someone has fun to make it.

 

the Plane: Bf-109 E-7

the Camo: of a 109 E-1 from JG 77 scheme (swastika censored for this picture)

and added the "Sharkmouth" from Bf-109D-1 of 2./JGr 176 in Gablingen

 

 

Edited May 4, 2023 by PivoYvo

[Haluter]

 

HSD Skin Design Contest - Judging Phase Begins!
 

Greetings, IL-2 Sturmovik enthusiasts!
 

First and foremost, we'd like to express our gratitude for the fantastic response to the HSD Skin Design Contest. With the end of April marking the close of submissions, we're truly impressed by the creativity of our community. Thank you to everyone who participated!
 

Now, it's time for the most exciting part - the judging phase! Our panel of judges will review each submission, assessing them based on originality and overall creativity. We'll be working hard to select the winning entries, which will be transformed into IL-2 Sturmovik skins by our talented skin artists.
 

? Judging Phase ?
 

Please bear with us as we take our time to carefully evaluate each entry. We want to ensure that we give each submission the attention it deserves. Once we've selected the winners, we'll make an announcement on this forum.
 

? Stay Tuned for the Winners ?
 

We understand the anticipation, and we're just as eager to reveal the winning designs. Rest assured, we'll announce the winners as soon as the judging process is complete. In the meantime, keep enjoying the world of IL-2 Sturmovik and stay tuned for updates.
 

Thank you once again for your support and participation in the contest. We wish you all the best of luck!
 

Good luck everyone!
The HSD Team

[BlackHellHound1]

HSD 10K Uploads Skin Design Contest - The WINNERS!

 

Greetings, contestants!

 

The winners of the HSD 10K Uploads Skin Design contest are known! The voting process took longer than expected because of the many interesting designs. 

 

After some deliberation, the HSD team has also decided that only 3 prizes will be awarded and that all entries will be combined into one pool. We did not feel it justified to award 6 prizes for only 10 valid entries. I won’t hold you any longer. Here are the winners!

?   Winners   ?

1st place
Spitfire Mk. XIV Mitchell's Marvel by @Malixi
Who has won $25 (to spend on IL-2 GB) + Your skin gets made by a skilled IL-2 artist!

 

2nd place
Fw 190 or P-47 Mad Max by @IRRE_FlyPlatypus
$16 (to spend on IL-2 GB) + Your skin gets made by a skilled IL-2 artist!

 

3rd place
Ar-234 Wasp by @Hanu
Your skin gets made by a skilled IL-2 artist!

 

 

?   Choose your artist   ?

Each winner gets to choose which artist gets to make their skin. The first place gets first pick, second place gets second pick and third place gets third pick. 
You can choose from the following artists. You can check their work on HSD if you are not sure who to choose. 

 

@Megalax

Megalax on HSD

@86th_Melonfish

Melonfish on HSD

@Raptorattacker

Raptorattacker on HSD

@BlackHellHound1

BlackHellHound1 on HSD

@ROCKET_KNUT

ROCKET_KNUT on HSD

@=RS=Tango-Sierra

Tango Sierra on HSD

 

 

?   Collect your prizes   ?

Contact me @BlackHellHound1 to collect your monetary prizes and inform us of your chosen artist.

 

Thank you all for your continued support and participation! 

The HSD Team
 

Edited June 5, 2023 by BlackHellHound1

[BlackHellHound1]

@Malixi & @IRRE_FlyPlatypus

 

Please contact me before July 3nd. If you fail to do so, your prize will be forfeited.

You have had a month to respond and contact me about your prize.

 

The HSD team and judges will decide how to proceed if either or both prizes are not claimed.

 

The HSD team

Edit:
All winners have contacted me and will receive their prizes!
 

Edited July 3, 2023 by BlackHellHound1