Part 1 - How to Design DTFB Planes

by nerdnic | September 4, 2014 | (13) Posted in How To

This series will cover the tools, techniques, and process of how to design a DTFB plane from beginning to end. I will be walking you through each step of the design process, through the building and plan revisions, all the way up to maiden of your new plane. My hope is that this series will be an interactive experience for you so please feel free to ask any questions you might have. I will be using Photoshop CS6 but you can use and apply the same techniques to Inkscape, GIMP, Paint.net, and many other powerful, free software.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

How to select the best reference image and how to establish the proper scale of your plane.

Using the line tool, layers, and starting on designing your fuselage, horizontal, and vertical stabilizer.

Designing your wing.

Fuselage, formers, and control surfaces.

Joining tail feathers, poster board, and misc details.

Getting your plans print ready.

Beta 1 build tips - coming soon

COMMENTS

Yogenh on September 24, 2014

Can something like this be done with windows paint??
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nerdnic on September 29, 2014

Hi there. Paint might not be a good choice but inkscape will work and is free!
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Yogenh on September 29, 2014

I will have to download it and give some of this a try. Thanks a lot
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Guy on September 12, 2014

Excellent ! Thank you o much for sharing. Guy
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nerdnic on September 29, 2014

Thanks for watching! Are you planning to do any designing?
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Yogenh on September 24, 2014

I love the looks of this one and can't wait to see it
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Goneflyin on October 5, 2014

Hey nerdnic love the tutorial. I was wondering if there is a reason you use the line tool rather than using photoshop path's. I like how you can easily make a curve that looks very smooth in path's rather than making short lines going around a curve. It takes a extra step to stroke a 10 pixel line on that path though.
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nerdnic on October 5, 2014

Hi there. I've not used the path tool before but someone suggested the same thing so I'm gonna try it out. I'm glad you're liking the tutorial so far!
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Goneflyin on October 5, 2014

I wish I knew more about making vector drawings in Photoshop. The nice thing is you can scale up and down without degrading the drawing. I guess it's not that bog of a deal because the end result is for foam board planes.
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Goneflyin on October 5, 2014

I think keeping is simple is the key. There are lots of advantages to just using the line tool even though the line tool is a little jagged going around curved objects. I like how you can rotate lines using the shift key to keep things lined up.

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nerdnic on October 6, 2014

It is very simple to use and since we are just dealing with basic lines scaling isn't really an issue. The visual quality is impacted minimally and it won't have negative effects on using the plans on DTFB, so overall I think it's okay.
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Goneflyin on October 6, 2014

Visually speaking foam board airplanes are lacking in the area of being pretty anyway so jagged lines that we use to build with doesn't really matter. I have been modeling for years and have been enjoying the simplicity and fun the Flitetest community is having with cheap foam. I messed around with Googles Sketchup but it's a much more complex program. I use photoshop all the time in my photography business just never used it to draw with.
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Part 1 - How to Design DTFB Planes

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