| Sometimes, modellers want to create perfect taxiways. They come out with only one tint, they are all straight, they have no default. But in reality, most of the time, it’s different. Taxiways that we see from top view on Google Earth were the result of years of upgrades and changes, because the airport evolves and the material get old. Consequence ? They sometimes look messy : |
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| But if you can reproduce this kind of ground (not exactly of course), your taxiways will become amazingly more lifelike. I recently watched a video on YT where the guy said : “The more mistakes you make, the more realistic your airport will be” And I personnally agree. When I decided to update my taxiway system, I wondered how would it have been in real life. The builders cannot remove everything and start from scratch, it will be too much expensive. In the same logic, I kept tarmac parts of my former taxiways, I left some pieces abandoned, and I recoloured some areas. Now, it looks a bit less “perfect”, but I think it added a little realism : |
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| So, don’t worry to make mistakes at the first place. By the time you will improve your airport, the former parts will unintentionally become an asset for adding realism. |
| After having made the overall look of your taxiways, it’s time to dig into details. To make details, I mainly focused on the ground texture. First, the pavement of the concrete is still a must to add contrast and realism. You just have to draw straight lines with a pencil or a thin pen. At scale 1/500, the square size can be 1cm x 1cm (mainly for curves), or 1,5cm x 1,5cm (on straight portions). Sometimes, you will also spot some cracks on the taxiways, which come from the aging process of the concrete. You can easily draw them with a pencil, like on this picture : |
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| For roadways crossing the taxiways, you can slightly darken the crossed surface with charcoal. Now let’s have a look at yellow taxiway lines. Be careful not to choose a too much bright yellow painter, otherwise it will look shiny. To reproduce the correct tint, I would suggest to use a painter between Naples yellow and amber yellow, like this. Furthermore, it’s a good idea to think about naming your taxiways and build indication panels. For that, it requires little knowledge about taxiways and signs, and I found a document from ICAO which is perfect if you want to learn it. You can find it here What I’ve done next is designing labels on my computer with an editor software, and print them out. I ended up having all my signs for my taxiways ! |
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