2027 B2O Endurance Liveries for iRacing

[Kenadian]

A quick preview of where I think the liveries will go beginning calendar year 2027 for Band of Others.

Before I get started, I wish to deeply apologize for my absence the past few years. I've been busy but don't think that's a fair excuse, I should have found a way to make more time to be supportive of you all and I cannot apologize enough. I'm humbled that you even race for Band of Others anymore, I've done nothing to deserve it.

I also wish to amend my drunken rant about abandoning blue, reverting to red on red as previous. To be fair, I've been working on embracing blue for years now and have been unhappy with every result.

That is until now.

I've promised to attempt return at running laps with you fine folk and thought the best way back would be skinning the car I enjoy driving most, the BMW M4 GT3 EVO.

Although not quite complete at this time as some specmap isn't displaying in the manner I'd like, it's almost there.

I've kept the shocking white as I love the way it appears on the front end. I feel it gives the car an aggressive aesthetic like "hey buddy, outta my way!".

If you wish to give it a preview, I've attached .tga and .mip.

 

[Skid_Marc_]

That looks really good! I like that you kept playing with the white on the front. It looks good without being overdone! Also, great detail on the lower door!

 

[Kenadian]

Thanks Marc, kind of you to say.

The GT World Challenge version is now complete, just buttoning up the IMSA livery as there's issues there.

I'm trying to pull my head from my bum and finally complete/publish both versions at the same time here as well as on Trading Paints.

 

[Noodleguitar]

Looking nice as always Ken!

I must say I do prefer the lighter blue tones to the darker blue ones. I like the front of the car a lot better than the rear for example. Then again, it always looks different in the app renderer from how it looks in-sim.

 

[Kenadian]

Looking nice as always Ken!

I must say I do prefer the lighter blue tones to the darker blue ones. I like the front of the car a lot better than the rear for example. Then again, it always looks different in the app renderer from how it looks in-sim.

In all honesty, I'm the complete opposite. I prefer more vibrant, deeper tones. For example, I'd always pick a midnight blue over a sky blue because I think it looks more sinister.

...and I consider this in every paint I make, maybe I'm an idiot lol.

...but, I like this...

...way more than this...

In reality, there isn't a massive difference between the lightest blue tone (the nose) on both vehicles. I just committed to the transition from medium blue to black much quicker.

It also made the red stand out more somehow so I was able to cut the amount of striping in half, committing to red only instead of light blue with red outline, cutting skinning time down considerably.

Having said that, transition on the Porsche behind door and quarter panel just washes out as I have to pull red from the color for the transition to work. I've spent so many hours trying to make it look what I consider good, and have failed.

This is why I got in Discord and drunkenly ranted about abandoning blue, I was fed up with it at that point (again, sorry for putting you guys through that).

At that point, I have hundreds of hours in blue and have nothing I like to show for it.

Then I committed to a darker hue, stars aligned, angels sang in my ears and I actually got shit done for a change, Shangri-La.

I think the lighter blues look great in iRacing's Livery Preview but not so good on track. I've such a high level of gloss in the clear with zero roughness, so they're really affected by the environment.

For example, seeing the grass reflected on the light blue just looks terrible imho.

This darker tone just looks more vibrant to me somehow and isn't affected by environment nearly as much.

Also, I was messing around with ghost banding which didn't work with light blue but look decent darker:

I'm still not sold on whether the banding works or not but just wanted to try something new?

Our Community is full of "Others", we're all unique and interesting in our own ways. For years I've been trying to figure out the "BAND" part and this is what I came up with lol.

We've always had the Others but never the BAND.

Anyway, this is why I ended up here and this is the first time I'm actually happy with a livery since switching from red on red.

Does any of this rambling nonsense make any sense to anyone crazy enough to read this far?