WIP: Killer Canary

[GiantFlyingRobots]

Most of the work shown here says different.

[Jesters-Ink]

Never said anything about the work here

[gamary]

none of us really know what we are talking about

Roger that. It's mostly a question of pretending to and talking a lot. Glad you like my pretending, though .

You shouldn't be afraid to post, though. The criticism is constructive in these parts, so it's worth going out on the shooting range and saying "I'm here! Open fire!" . It stings the good ol' pride of course, but it's the best way I know to improve.

[Jesters-Ink]

Thing is, we are all learning in here and the more info/ideas we bounce around, the better we should get. I know I've learnt one thing from Blowhard, I should have picked cake decorating.

[anadc4]

Don't forget the shading under the tailplane. The shading I use is straight out of 1950s airbrush profiles by Peter Endsleigh Castles. The tailplane shadow, for instance, is sharply defined. The brightest point on a cylindrical fuselage is about 2/3rds up from the bottom, and I use quite a lot of shading to for a maxium 3D effect of an object front lit by the midday sun.

Of course, the T-6 is not a cylinder. It changes shape and the position of the highlights will change with it, from the cylinder of the engine cowling to the tall, oval shape of the rear fuselage.

David

[BLOWHARD]

Jeez, its a tough crowd in here, I'm a little frightened to post here anymore.

Most of the suggestions submitted are things that I never even consider when I work on these things, I guess I better start thinking a little harder about what I am doing from now on.

Please don't be frightened and please don't think harder unless you really want too!!!
Seriously, if we were all attempting to do photo-realistic representations of aircraft, that would be one thing. But if I've said it once, I've said it too much, there isn't really a right or wrong way to do a aircraft profile! The perspective that we use, or lack of it makes aircraft profiles more than just a little unrealistic. By flattening the perspective of the fuselage we've already broken a rule. If you break one, why not keep going and pick and choose what you will do. A profile can be anything from a simple line drawing filled with color to a very realistically rendered piece of art. It just depends what you want out of it. So long as you accomplish what you've set out to do, it works If your goal is to make an object appear to be round, it doesn't matter what method you employ, so long as it looks round.
For my self I feel that learning and progressing are the most important parts of any art or craft, but again, it just depends on what you want to take away from the experience

I know I've learnt one thing from Blowhard, I should have picked cake decorating.

Thanks for the compliment, but...aren't we cake decorators of a sort already?

[GiantFlyingRobots]

Thinking does tend to over heat my brain, so I try and keep it to an absolute minimum, thats why I do profiles. My original post was meant in jest.(damn internet doesn't always convey irony)

I always consider constructive criticism as good criticism. I wouldn't post here if I was scared to get a gentle shellacking, in fact its the best reason to post here. I want to improve and to my best, and I think I have come a long way since my very first attempt at a profile (not the Thunderbolt posted here) if I posted that here you could really go to town on my work.

Apologies to gamary for hi-jacking this thread.

[gamary]

No problem about the hijacking, GFR. I'm a regular hijacker myself. But be careful saying things like "me do profiles, cuz me no think". Not that it's untrue, but you might start a nuclear war on the board...

Back to my canari: I've worked some more on it. The light reflection on the underside is mostly a SNAFU, IMO. Apart from that I've added other things and it's starting to look like something:



Other mod/improvement include redesigning the main wheel fairing: it was much too big and "forward-set" on the previous model. I still have to draw the wheels (lowered and raised), create a no-spinner version (most French ones didn't have a spinner I believe). The colour is now much better, thanks to BH.

If anybody has detailed pics of the main hall (cockpit & instrument panels), I'd be interested: I don't have much. The rudder still needs lots of detailing: again I don't have much reference for it and some Texans seem to have fabric-covered control surfaces while others have metal ones. I need to finish that T-6 in action book to learn about those details...

Among the things I'm happy about is the fact that I've managed (so far) to keep the file size at a very reasonable 14 Mb. In addition, I had developed the shading to go with Yellow, but it seems to fit well with other colours as well:



Next challenge could be to work on a natural metal finish from there on...

[anadc4]

See two lines of profile art - planes and colour schemes. Some of the plane profiles here are mind-boggling for the detail, way beyond my capacity to do. So I'm a colour scheme kind of person, which allows you to get away with simple panel lines instead of every rivet head. Bit like plastic modelling in 1/72nd instead of 1/24th, I suppose.

The T-6s is a great subject for colour schemes because there are so many of them. Natural metal is a real personal taste thing. This is my version. It is built off 150,150,150 with pure black shading and pure white highlights. Some panels have been defined, then lightened or darkened 5-10% to make it it look a little patchworked. It is probably a little too dark for most people's taste.

[Jesters-Ink]

Yes, that has a real glow about it now, very well done Gamary.
That DC6 is nice too anadc4, some more lighting in there could really push it.

BH dead right, rules are for guidelines, play with it til you break it, then back up and try again.