I'm seeing a lot of Generals Lee in this game which are painful
to look at. I'm doing this as a favor to the Forza community
and out of respect for the General Lee.
To make a General Lee that stands out among a bunch of
thrown-together ones, here are some tidbits of helpful information:
RULE #1:
Don't use the default fonts for the numbers or the letters.
This is a shortcut, which detracts from the design.
None of the provided fonts come close to what was
used on the real cars. You have plenty of layers to make it
look right, use them.
Rule #2:
The text is NOT centered to the flag. Line it up to the door, but slightly
back. Use this photo as a reference.
Rule #3:
The text is blue with a white border. The following graphic
is made by tracing a real series-used General Lee and scanning
it into the computer (and smoothing it out in Adobe Illustrator)
Rule #4:
The flag has a total of 13 stars. On some GLs, the stars all faced
one way, on others, the right half (minus the center one) were
flipped 180 degrees from how they are in the photo.
Rule #5:
The flag is closer to the front windshield than it is to the rear
window. It is centered left-to-right, but the gap behind is larger
than the gap in the front.
Rule #6:
The blue on the text is slightly lighter than the blue on the flag.
Rule #7:
The 01 does not go to the bottom of the door. In real life, it is two
inches from the bottom of the door (not the bottom of the rocker panel).
The top of the numbers just begins to touch where the body lines
come down. The "0" is slightly asymmetrical, being slightly thicker
on one side than the other.
The first five episodes will sometimes reveal a pair of crossed flags
between the trunk lid and the rear window. This part of the design did
not last long, and the rest of the series has no crossed flags there. So
the flags there or not is mostly a preference, depending upon which era
of General Lee you are going for.
My General Lee was designed after the last four seasons of the series.
The early GLs had darker blue in the flag and a darker blue on the text.
The font also had fatter letters. The numbers were also slightly thinner
in the early episodes.
The movie Lees used a different font for the text. This is most noticable
in the "G." The movie "G" used Phoenix Graphics decals, which put
an extra serif on the "G."
I will be selling plenty of affordable (and accurate!) Generals over the next few weeks. I will sell them at minimal profit, just to get some good ones out there. I am also planning to do a "Dukes of Hazzard Trivia" series in which correct answers will score some fans a FREE, unlocked General Lee. Knowing that they are in the hands of true fans, I will encourage the winners to mass-produce them and sell as many as they want. I'm doing this out of respect for the legend. I bought and built my own real General Lee because, to me, the car stands for fighting against corruption (including racism and prejudice, among the usual greed and other corruption) like a true modern-day Robin Hood. This is important, respect the legend.
The Dukes of Hazzard isn't racist. It may imply that white guys can't make effective cops, since the smart cop was black (Chickasaw county). But that wasn't a race thing.