Hi there,

nice model, I didn't have time to read the entire thread, but you're trying to light your plane now right.
I think the main thing that bothers me is that if the plane is in the sky you'd have only the sun as a light source, hence you'd get quite distinct shadows. Try a directional light for the sun, or if you want the easy way out use the physical sun and sky in MR.

have a look here you can see that one side of the plane is a lot darker then the other
http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircra...ft10oClock.jpg

Also you might want to play a bit with your materials, even battered war planes would have a couple of reflective metal parts.

You could use fluids/particles to simulate clouds in front of the plane and maybe some clouds that stick on the wings of the plane(like if the wings are cutting through the clouds?)i hope you get what i mean otherwise i will try to explain better.
Also the texturing could use some reality, like seams between hull plating and such(bump /displacement).
Maybe a specular map(instead of probably only tweaking specularity-value's).
Modeling wise i think the front of the plane seems a bit to flat, it's to straight if i look at the picture it needs a bit of a curveature the same goes for the wing.
I hope it is not to late because it needs a bit of tweaking, before you post it as a final.

best regards


edit forget the red circle around spikethingy , my bad sorry :P

I've looked at other pics and they don't have motion blur on the plane or the background. There is a small bump and there are shadows already.

About the spec map, I've used them on a bunch of my models, but I don't really like them that much. Too much work into too little of a thing.