Newbee with Lancaster work

[atccbengt]

Hello all!

New on this exellent forum. Hobbies are modellig and aircraft profiles together with aviation history.
Working on a Lancaster profile for a forthcomming book about the bombing of the U-boat pens in the Norwegian town of Bergen in 1944 and 1945. So far I have used 4-5 working days on this drawing. Far from finnished. Hope you all enjoy

Best regards,
Bengt,
Bodo, Norway.

[x4btr]

Hello Bengt!

It has been a while since I've heard your fine name, so welcome to SPS. Overall, I think this is coming on very well, although some of the Lanc experts here will no doubt look to the rear fuselage where various details were modified through the different versions.

My only comment devolves around your upper surface colours of Dark Earth and Dark Green. For me, I like to use samples of just about RGB 107/85/58, and 59/69/54, with a 20% total desaturation. To my eye what you have here might be a bit bright and strong.

Any road, welcome and nice to see your work again.

[inkworm]

Really need to work on the shading, there seems to be little variation just a thin highlight and the shadow, this isn't how the a/c looked. Plus the highlight to the rear of the cockpit is at an angle when the fuselage was a straight curve so the highlight should run parallel to the top of the a/c

Also double check the curve of the bombers blister and the front turret, the shapes don't quite look 100% right.

Adding interior detail to stuff like the turret will make a huge difference as well to the illustration. I agree that the green/brown are totally wrong and am sure that others will say the same.

Have a look at some of the other lanc threads for the profiles and other resources

[Simcoe Warrior]

Nice work so far, for sure you need to adjust your camo colours but that is an easy fix. The exhaust covers look pointedm almost triangular, they were actaully semi circular - again an easy fix.

[atccbengt]

Ah! Have I opened a can of worms?

Exhaust covers: I agree. Looked triangular. Fixed.

Highlight and reflections: To bright and not aligned. Fixed.

Nose section: I' m not sure about it looking not right. Used drawings by Granger and some drawings that apeared in Scale Aviation Modeller International some time/years ago. There are differences between them. The nose section and the lenght of the fuselage are the most prominent. Which of them to choose? Since I've never meassured up the real thing, what can I say.

Then the never ending discussion of colours. What is the right one and what is not? There are as many ways of drawing a colour profile, as there are people doing it. Just as plastic kit builders, some like the end product portraying a used machine and some like it to look brand new from the factory. And the colours? Did a brand new Lancaster have other colours than an old veteran with 60 ops. and 2 years of service life? What about displaying colours? How do we know what Dark Green looked like? Colour photographs? The memory of people that were there? Colour chips from a museum? I dont know but I can say this. Colour photographs are the only source readily available to most modellers, profile drawers etc, etc. But they are unreliable because of all the factors in the prosess from the photo was taken to the end product in a book. Have a look at the scanned photos below.

A brand new Mosquito in the prosess of leaving the Hathfield factory early summer of 1943. Check out the Dark Green.



An early Lancaster being serviced. Compare the Dark Green in this photo compared to the Mossie above.



and an early production Halifax. Again, check the Dark Green and Dark Earth compared to the Lancaster.



They are scanned from the same book with the same settings on the scanner and software. Why are the greens so different? If any one have the only and correct answer, let me know. And dont forget your monitor settings. They are another factor to take into consideration.
I use CMYK while drawing. Mostly because the drawings are to be printed. Another consideration.....?

All the best,
Bengt


...and by the way, long time since last time Eric :-)

[Serval]

Hitler wanted to have color photo´s of paintings to preserve them in some way. This project was cancelled because it appeared impossible to capture the real colors with the techniques available at that time. Those photo´s are taken in the same time and even worse, they have aged since then. Besides they have been taken with different camera´s different film etc. Some brands are known to be more warm (reddish) others cold ( blueish) and so on.
Also, an experiment you can do with you digital camera: Shoot in raw mode, set a fixed white balance. Now take a photo of the same object every hour. Now compare the colors. You will see that the colors look different. Same goes for sunny days and rainy days.

Look at the sky in photo two compared with the other two. It clearly shows why the colors of the aircraft look so different. The light looks like some evening sun to me.

You mention monitor settings as a factor. Yes, they are. But I expect that most people here have their monitor calibrated. Beside the things I mentioned, also the print of the book is an issue. Though the photo´s come from the same book, you cannot be sure the pages are printed the same way. When I look at several prints I see a lot of differences in color

To add: Federal Standard and British standard are two of the few color standards that still are well documented. So it is known how the paint was made. So, yes it is known what they did look like. Your argument goes for all other standards that got lost.

[JMSmith]

and for the umpteen time,

here are the correct base colours for RAF bomber command aircraft, sorry no arguments or discussion, been there already with nearly everyone on here and they all realised the colours are correct
its up to you, i just give advise

[inkworm]

John can't you just post this up on a new thread, lock it down, make it sticky and point everyone to it?

Apart from that Serval seems to sum it up pretty accurately.

[Serval]

If John sends the complete list of BS colors he has, I'd be happy to add them to the site to replace the current BS list.