@CaptainCat Yes life comes first!
@Megahenrik I would start easy by making logos for businesses. This will allow you to get your folders and files organized on your computer and introduce you into photo/image editing. Then if you are up to it, you can dive into liveries, which involve more advance photo editing learning.
I learned everything myself with the help of a couple others here and there, but mostly I googled how to do things in the photo editors etc (so its doable if you know nothing like I did). It just takes time and a lot of patience if you are learning from scratch, but it is a lot of fun and the thrill of seeing your businesses and liveries show up at your airport is the best part!
In regards to making logos look right, its all about getting the best quality image for logos, sometimes I recreate them if the quality is bad. But you just have to judge how it looks on the aircraft, where they start and finish (use windows etc. to help line them up), squash them (scaling in photo editors) to make them look like the are wrapping around the side of the fuselage or on the side of the tail etc and crop to only show the parts of the aircraft you want it to show… Its a learning process but again, its a lot of fun especially when you see the final product!!!
The flight planner is pretty easy for the text and background colors, you just have to find the RGB colors that you want to use, if you have Hex color codes you can convert them easily online with a Hex to RGB converter website. For the logo, I just find the logo online (usually with transparent background and best quality) and then save that as the Contract and Flight planner logo (white background/color text) and then I overlay the logo in white for the flight planner color background/white text and save that. Once you have one these things a few times you can do them pretty quickly. Again like you said, it just takes time and practice.
Logos for non-airline businesses (banks, contractors, De-Icing Fluid Suppliers etc…) are the easiest and where I would suggest you start if you are interested. All you have to do is:
- Learn basic image editing
- Save the logo as a png file (I use 1024 x 512 pixel size now)
- Learn how to edit the json file for business type, class, description, logo location etc…
- Learn where the files go on your computer to load into the game
- And learn how to upload them to steam if you wish to, for others to be able to use your creations!
I made a step by step guide (with photos - Mac specific) that follows the Airline Mod instruction guide (link included in my guide) to make it easier to set up your folders for making airlines. Businesses aren’t included in the guide but they aren’t that hard to learn. So this link is a good place to start with other links to help you out included in it.