No problem! 
Just look up reference from airliners.net - they have a HUGE amount of excellent aviation related pics
Oh well… I also saw you need to make the suspension of the landing gear hang. If you look at the pics, you can see it hangs down in flight also… quite a lot!
I discovered airliners.net just after I finished the helicopter. It’s a great site.
Do you mean those wheels must hang more down? I’m just now quite sure about terminology.
Yes, the wheels. Especially the main gear. If I look at your renders, it sticks out pretty much. The bars of the suspension are almost horizontal there 
now if you look at the photos, you can see that when the helicopter is in the air, they are angled about 20-30 degrees down…
Its an awesome model, so these little details would give it the final touch for realism with minimal effort!
I totally agree with you. I was quite puzzled with those tings when modeled them, as in some references they looked like this and in some different. And some models were different at all. But what you say makes sense.
I did some basic comping, and tomorrow will finish it. I think adding lens flares, some background things, and I don’t know what else… maybe get rid of quantization artefacts.
So I will fix those notes tomorrow. Thanks again for your input!
So I fixed issues and made comping. Please tell me what you think I could improve. Maybe later I will add some smoke or haze particles.
Both are very nice and have their own strengths:
1st:
-I like the lighting, very warm and the tint is well chosen.
-Interesting composition.
2nd
-Nice composition showing off the model better.
-nice lighting, but cold.
Cobra 6
Thank you Joep. I think it looks cold because of the mist I did for background elements. I’m not sure if they are needed at all.
love both of the renders but if i had to choose a favorite it would be the first, warmer looking tint. think the reflection on the glass and some metal parts could have a tiny bit more of a glossy look and not so frosty tho.
awsome amount of detail in the model tho!!
Thank you for your opinion. I think you are right. I will take a look a bit later at it, as I’ve looked too much at it and can’t perceive it straight.
I’m so happy to see other renders of your awesome model.As others mentioned,the 1st image stands out,although the 2nd is really good too.
Nice mood and well dosed blur,keep them coming!
Thank you Mehdy. I will look a bit later at them and fix minor issues. I now see the glasses look a bit odd in the evening variant and the second looks a bit pale and frosty.
I have shown the 1st render to one of my friends who is an aviation enthusiast like me and he was stunned by the quality of your work.
btw I will be attending MAKS 2011 and have my first close look at the real thing!
That’s cool, thank you.
Aggrh… ashamed to know the mistakes. 
I wish I could take a photosession before modeling it. When I recently worked on vehicles for production, I was given lots of shot materials with all the closeups. That’s really a piece of cake when you have good references.
An amazing model, mister3d! 
Here a tip concerning reference photos (in case you didnt try it yet): search for military pages only and
try this at Google: (also as image search!!)
site:.mil Mil mi17 helicopter
That’s a great tip, thank you!
If I would start doing it again, I would:
-make all the details with sub-d instead of hard-surface here and there. This way I could make closeups anywhere
-would model the main body connected with the upper one. This brought a lot of problems with texturing
-would unwrap everything to the same scale and more space-efficiently. I wasted lots of space on many maps, as well as the ratio of textures was different.
-I would not use pelt-mapping for unwrapping many parts, as it lead to stretching when I started adding seams and rivets. This took a LOT of time at the texturing stage, when it really shouldn’t.
-First and foremost I would paint bump maps for the details. For some reason, I started from diffuse the first time. Then I remade them.
-Also I would use occlusion for adding dirt and stuff like this. I’m really curious how much faster would I make the whole thing.
-maybe… I would make the specular maps with some differences from diffuse, i.e. not extracting it solely from diffuse. This could add some interesting variation.
-some procedural approach would be interesting to try.
-I would go for a crisper texturing in terms of adding tear-wear and dirt. I didn’t use much of brushes, which could add some more realism. What I mean, extracted from photos effects like these:
Also one hint: using such brushes should be made in conjunction with masks. You take the texture of dirt, and paint the mask for it with the brush like this. And here you go! Realistic dirt ear-wear.
I love the dusk rendering of those two birds Are you also going to put some heat distortion and slight smoke around the exhausts? I think that will sort of “integrate” them more into the empty air space.
Waiting for the next updates
Cheers
Andre
Thank you. That’s exactly what I wanted to make. I asked my friend to make some smoke, but he seems a bit busy, so maybe I will make it by myself. The head I’m planning to make with the help of displacement node in post. Yeah, I get this feeling something is missing there. There are other things that need to be fixed, like windshields looking odd. Maybe some skyscrapers in the background could be added. I also still don’t feel it’s quite realistic. Maybe I will cut the glow in half or turn it off. I’m also thinking about the shadows, if I need to crash them more.
Thanks for the crits, I still often look at your renders. Well it’s obvious I got some inspiration from them.
Right now I’m busy with other things, so the helicopter is not my main focus. I will return to it a bit later.
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.