Brewster 339E Buffalo

[JMSmith]

from this side,

your undersurface colour is BLACK and ditto the comment abou the font used please do not send this for publication until you correct these problems

[BLOWHARD]

I have to agree. It's one thing to just do this sort of art that we do for our own pleasure but if you are planning on publishing, please try to get it right.
I've seen WAY too many "reputable" sources that just didn't bother getting things like a font correct, just using what was on hand. It's one thing to interpret the artistic parts of this kind of thing, shading, lighting, and what ever other realistic or stylistic touches you want. But it's another thing ignore the reference material if one wants to create a representation of a real plane.
Perhaps we're all jumping down your throat here and you are doing this for yourself? That's fine. If you don't feel a need to recreate a type face/font style accurately, that' your call. But please don't add to a long line of shoddy inaccurate published profiles.

Just to show my heart (what there is of it) is in the right place, I spent a little under 15 minutes to show how easy this is to get right, or a lot closer.
Mine is FAR from perfect but I did them fairly quickly.

You've got a good almost perfect profile photo. The only thing not clear is the serial with the exception of the 0 and part of the 8. I'm sure looking over photos of similar marked planes one could deduce the exact style of the AN1.
How did I do it? I used a font that was close, one of the easily downloaded RAF fonts. I laid those out on the photo, converted them to vectored paths and made modifications so that the shapes and widths matched.
You're welcome to use these if you like. I'm not sure if the Photoshop paths will transfer with this jpg to this website but I do have a set of paths for these markings.

[mclaring]

Guys,

tx indeed. Please relax - I have no intention of setting this to print until its right. I have another 5 months to work on this. I really appreciate the help, and special thanks to Blowhard - I'll use your assistance to recreate the British letters.

I take no exception to expertise - rather I am humbled by the time you guys are taking on this,


Mclaring

[Clint Mitchell]

mclaring, We are all here for the same thing: to get better with our profiles. And you are doing very nicely indeed. Just use THIS forum and WATCH and learn, keep your eyes WIDE open mate and in time you will get there, listen to your Critiques, dont take them to heart and use them to your advantage. Practice makes perfect! Never a truer saying in life. Keep at it. You have found the best place to learn already! So stick at it.

Warm Regards

Clint

[mclaring]

OK guys,

well, here are some major changes. new wheel, lighter rudder, camou has more accurate colours, have used Blowhards letters, and have modified the canopy.

One issue I can air between us. Whenver I submit profiles to mags I am wary that they will be printed too dark (have been badly burned in past). I always submit them as .jpg. Is there a more reliable format to hedge your bets against wrong colour reproduction ?

btw, just to get everyone going I have just posted a Blenheim for the same article.

Cheers lads,

Mclaring

[Clint Mitchell]

Thing is with a Jpeg even at the maximum quality as soon as you save it the colours change very slightly. A tiff is the best format to use really a little bit on the heavy side but speak to the magazines first they may have an FTP you can upload it to, CD in the post?

Clint

[BLOWHARD]

I agree, ALWAYS TIFF unless the publishers requests a jpeg. If you can't FTP, mail a CD off to them.

[JMSmith]

please change that underside colour to black,

remember, port black, starboard sky

[BLOWHARD]

Geez John, yer SOOOO picky

[jimmaas]

Hi - I'm not a simmer but I can help with info on the Buffalo if you need it. Please feel free to contact me at jimmaas@aol.com

As far as the profile you're working on, a couple of suggestions - the bottom of the rear canopy should not be a straight line, it follows a frame line and thus curves gently down toward the rear (it is not parallel with the sliding canopy bottom). RAF Buffaloes had two landing lights so one should show under each wing (RAF types the only ones with two lights). You need to show the ventral window. The underwing roundel did not extend onto the aileron, but the dimensions are correct for this s/n (early W8xxx Buffaloes had a 1-2-3 ratio underwing roundels). Buffaloes were painted in 'A' and (mirror image) 'B' patterns. Yours is a mix of the two. I can send some rough diagrams of both (I forget which one AN180 was but that's easay to reference). Please e-mail me if I can be of help.