Welding

[Otterkins2]

There has gotta be a way of making weld lines realistic. What I'm doing is a joke. I can do wood, water, steel and a ton of other stuff, but I'm lost when it comes to weld lines. Anybody got a clue?

[gamary]

I'd suggest playing with bevel and emboss on a very erratic line/base?

[BLOWHARD]

Like these?]

I use a small scatter brush. But there are a lot of different kinds of welds. I'd say your indication on the FW 190 tail wheel was very nice. I don't think a line drawing of a weld line will ever approximate what a real weld line looks like except for fully rendering it.
And, like I'm always saying, get out that photo reference to see how the real weld line looks

[Otterkins2]

Has to be for lines folks. I'm still in kindygarten.

[adlabs6]

I'm not sure I'd consider line art a 'kindergarten' for painting, but rather a separate and equal art form. Something I found as I studied further at painting, was that very often the line art, while useful as a guide, was completely gone from the final painting. I don't think there is a vector outline to be seen in the sample of Blowhard's work.

It's worth thinking about where you'd like to be down the road with your art. This may be of help in deciding which specializing techniques will do the most to get you there.

Opinions will vary of course.

[Otterkins2]

I know where I wanna be. I wanna be all growed up like Jester, Blowhard, Gamary Et Al. I wanna do colour profiles that rock your clocks and blow off your socks. Someday maybe I'll be able to do that.......

[Jesters-Ink]

Otter, your line drawings ROCK and whilst doing them you are taking the first tender steps of profile art. You'll get there I don't doubt it, but why be sad, you are already a master at what you do?

btw . . .I never growed up, I was drawing pictures of planes when I was five, and I'm still drawing um

[AGNT_Matt]

i can safely concur with Jester, he hasn't grown up. Otter you line drawings already rock pal, cant wait to see whats next.

[BLOWHARD]

I think you need to ask yourself a question or two now Otter,
These lines you want to draw for welds, will the attempt to look like real welds, is that the idea? Or are the line indications? I really don't believe you can duplicate something as subtle and as "not outlined" as welds with black line work. Perhaps with pencil, but not what we?re doing on the computer. Welds, and other things, like contours, bead lines and all sorts of other things just cant be accurately drawn with black lines, they can only be suggested. That's the stuff that needs to be rendered with subtle shading, and without hard lines.
I still say your welds on the 190 tail wheel are fine as they are

Oh, and by the way,

I wanna be all growed up like Jester, Blowhard, Gamary

I can't speak for the other guys but I 'taint ever gonna be growed up!

[Otterkins2]

OK...I got it, but now I can't remember how I did it!!!