navy spook...again !

[Aircraftprofiles]

Hi Mark

Next comment "I don´t want to get into a discussion of other artists accuracy, especially if they don´t have posted their work in this forum, themselves (which must mean that they are not interested in hear mine or any others oppinion)." care of 'Aircraftprofiles'. This I interpret as another jibe as it implies that I am too arrogant to be interested in the opinion of others. Again this is not true. I visit this web site occasionally precisely because I am interested in the work of others, though I have not learnt anything useful here to date. I have also posted artwork here before. I happened to be researching the P-38 for my own artwork as someone else was producing a P-38 illustration. The thread ended shortly thereafter and later another was started. It was clear to me that certain members of this forum feel my presence here is not required; again I can only speculate as to why.

I think you have misinterpreted my comment entirely. If i have offended you i´m sorry, but i can assure you that was not the case.
The reason for my comment was: I post my work in this forum to hear what the users of this forum have to say about my work. My work often is loaded with errors which i only come across when they are pointed out to me, so that´s pretty much why i post my work in here.
The reason for my comment about "other peoples artwork" is simply that i wouldn´t like my own artwork to be judged in a forum like this, without my approval.

What have happend here just shows you why i don´t want to discuss any other artists artwork in my own treads...i leads to misinterpretations (in the case of my comments), and bad blood among our small community of aviation profile artists, and that too me, would be a great shame !

So Mark, i can assure you i don´t find you arrogant in any ways, and if that´s the impression you have of me, I can only say: I´m sorry !

[GiantFlyingRobots]

I visit this web site occasionally precisely because I am interested in the work of others, though I have not learnt anything useful here to date.

Really???? What an odd thing to say.

Then you say.

I post my work in this forum to hear what the users of this forum have to say about my work. My work often is loaded with errors which i only come across when they are pointed out to me, so that´s pretty much why i post my work in here.

Have I missed something in translation?

I have also posted artwork here before. I happened to be researching the P-38 for my own artwork as someone else was producing a P-38 illustration. The thread ended shortly thereafter and later another was started. It was clear to me that certain members of this forum feel my presence here is not required; again I can only speculate as to why.

Now, I've read this a number of times and cant for the life of me work out what your talking about.

As one of the last people to put up a P-38 WIP I have to wonder if it is my thread that you mention, why would I(or anybody else) stop a thread because you had joined it? Have you learned nothing in your time here? threads especially mine come to a grinding halt all the time for no reason at all, unless you consider boredom a legitimate reason.

Your last statement regarding your unwelcome presence here is just daft. There is no conspiracy, we welcome and generally try to encourage all.

Im glad that Mark has had his right of reply. I knew he would eventually.

I guess he peruses the board a lot more often than he posts.

[Aircraftprofiles]

Hi GFR

I understand your confussion...the first paragraf (from "Next comment...." to "as to why" is a quote of Marks previous post. From there on out i take over....don´t know how i did it, but apparently i screwed up when trying to insert a qoute.

I have my post now and hope my point is comming across more clearly now

[JMSmith]

" There are other comments, including one that asserts that I copied someone's B-26 artwork and his mistake. In that instance I've not even seen the supposed artwork I am accused of copying. "

do i asume i am that person, if so the fault is on the rudder, and my profile is THE ONLY ONE with it, so i do not believe in coincidence of the specific fault, so how did you end up with the same fault!!!!!

i don't care if someone copies my work, i never have done, but please admit when you are found out.

i have been trying to stay in the shadows but this comment drew me out, now sod of all of you and let me sink back into my manic depresion

by the way mark, i dont have a problem with your artwork, if you are happy with it then alls well and good.

[MARKSTYLING]

To respond to the various comments and issues raised in the responses to my previous post....

RE; pkassak's response; I complained about all the Osprey books being deemed to be rubbish and the problem I have with this is that there an awful lot of them to all be seen as so. You mention John Weal's work who is someone who I know personally. To my knowledge John does not even possess a computer and still works with an airbrush and that is his choice. I used to do so myself and know how difficult and time consuming it is. When you are commissioned to produce work for a book project you have to work to the amount of money you are being paid so to produce an airbrushed artwork to the standard of digital work would be totally uneconomic even if possible. The Osprey Aces series began way back in 1993 which largely predates the digital artwork era. Prior to that there was precious little published on these subjects and to me they covered a lot of new ground that added to what little there was before. John in his turn added to the knowledge base via the series despite there being errors, as there are in most of the books. Without his work it would be less easy to add to the general knowledge about those Luftwaffe subjects and therefore I respect him and the work he has done. All well and good if others can now publish more accurate information. Again John Weal is not here to defend himself and probably would not choose to do so. I do not envy his position as I know the world is full of self appointed Luftwaffe experts. When the series first started I turned down the work. It was simply not possible for me to do the work and earn a living because the illustrations were too complex to create with an airbrush to the standard I would have wished.

Myself and others are dismayed when there is an obvious mistake published in work that we are associated with. One of the most amusing errors appears in the Osprey P-47 ETO book. The author states in one photo caption that the cover over the pitot tube on the wing has a red streamer to help the unwary avoid banging their heads on the tube. There is another photo in the book that clearly shows an average height man standing under the wing that is a good two feet above him. This indicates that you would have to be a giant to bang your head on the pitot tube of the P-47. The author also appears to demonstrate that he does not know the purpose for a pitot cover and its attached streamer; one to stop dirt blocking the very important tube and the streamer to remind the ground crew to remove the cover before flight. Does this rather silly error render all is work worthless?, I think not, but we could all do without such mistakes.

RE; Spah's response; I did feel as a moderator that your original comment was not setting a very good example, but I was not offended just confused by it. I am not precious about my work and am in fact my own worst critic. I look at some of the stuff on my site and know that some badly needs updating and improving. I don't need criticism to help me improve my work as I try to do it anyway myself all the time. Having a complacent attitude to one's own abilities and to the work of others is a hindrance to self improvement which is what large portions of this site is obstensibly about. I don't mind harsh criticism, but it should at least be specific instead of a general dismissive remarks. I actually believe there is not enough harsh criticism here and too much pussyfooting trying not to offend. When I was 17 (30 years ago) an art teacher looked at the portfolio of my work with me and other students looking on. He took each picture and one by one threw them over his shoulder. He told me it was all rubbish and I needed to start again an loose the style I had adopted which he knew would be a hinderance to my learning. I was not offended by his behavior, he was entirely correct and it helped me enormously.

To elaborate on the copyright issue I mentioned; I don't have too much of a problem with Ugo's use of my work in this thread, but in relation to other threads here is my comment. There are instances where scanned artwork (not just mine) has been posted which is protected by copyright; both line work and color artwork. The issues are these:-. If the copyright holder objects to his work being republished in this way the site can be taken to task for it and at worst damages (in UK law unlimited) can be claimed. Next:- There are people here that seek to earn money from their artwork. If commissioned to produce line work for instance (as I have) they are being paid by a publisher for that work to be used in a book. The publisher then gains revenue from the sales of those books. Some people will be buying certain books to obtain the line work for whatever reason. If that work is then scanned and republished and made available to all then no one needs to buy the books. In turn the publisher makes less money and in turn is less liable or able to commission the work from an illustrator. This might be pointing out the obvious, but this is how the practice of scanning work and posting it is actually harmful to yourselves. At very least, if line work is to be shared it should be done via private mail which would stop it being available to all. Again this is not a criticism, but perhaps if my argument might seem logical it might be of use.

RE; GinatFlyingRobots' response; my comments seemed quite straightforward to me, but you have attributed a statement to me that I did not make which seems to lead to the confusion. In relation to the P-38 threads here;
http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...-were-we-2498/
http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...htning-s-1938/
I came across this post whilst researching my own artwork that I was hastily creating for a client. My artwork was to be used as the basis for the paint job on a real P-38 (namely 'Thoughts of Midnite') so everything had to be technically accurate. I posted in response to a question and later (for no good reason) posted more artwork as I was producing it. This started at page five of the thread and soon no other posting by the original artwork producers and latterly by yourself. What made me think it might have been because I joined the thread that it soon ceased, is when you started another thread with the opening words "Hopefully this will help get this joint back on track. Unless somebody decides to count the rivets" If my interpretation was wrong then so be it, but I would say that your current response containing 'daft', 'learned nothing' and 'conspiracy' etc is perhaps a little too defensive and leading me to suspect that my suspicion was correct. I try to imagine standing next to someone rather than being distanced by the digital world and moderate my language accordingly.

RE; JMSmith's comments, this is what I do find offensive. Here I am again accused of copying someone else's work when I know I did not. Furthermore, that I have been 'found out', but 'refuse to admit it' is questioning my integrity yet further. As such I would now like to put an end to this and therefore would like to know exactly when and where the artwork that I'm supposed to have copied was first published. Please be specific with a book ISBN number or a web site URL that can prove the first publication date. If you wish to do this privately my E-mail address is sales@aviationillustration.com

This thread is about producing an F-4 illustration and this later discussion has gone way off topic. To bring it back to the subject of producing artwork I will add three further comments which may or may not be of use with the F-4 artwork and others and will suffice to elaborate on my view of some of the advice given on this site as it opposes some views; make of it what you will.

As for the shape of the F-4, I used a basic 'station' drawing from the manufacturer as a base and then took some measurements from the real thing at Duxford. There are no accurate line drawings of F-4s that I know of and a lot of misleading drawings as is usually the case. I've yet to take measurements of the F-4E and that's why there are none on my site.

The subject of reflected light; By reflected light I mean light that would be reflected from the ground (or any other surface) back up to the underside of an object, in this instance an airplane. All two dimensional artwork is an illusion, profile artwork especially so. There are rules in painting that you ignore at your peril and if you were to ignore the effect of reflected light in a full color painting (photorealistic) then it would look appalling. Applying the effect to profile artwork may seem unnecessary as the background is white, but it serves to fool the eye and makes the image seem more three dimensional which is exactly what we are trying to achieve; the image then stands out from the page instead looking flat. Try this out with two different versions of the same artwork and show them to a passer-by with no artistic ability and ask which one they think looks more realistic.

Physical size and resolution (dpi) Whatever size you work at is of course your own choice, but there is of course one small point. If you work at a certain resolution and physical size your artwork is limited to that size. If you attempt to reproduce a small piece of artwork too big it then starts to become blurred or pixelated. This is fine right up till someone wants a much bigger picture than what you have created. As such I believe it better to work at a high resolution, I work at 1000 dpi with a physical size of 24 inches wide. This creates a large file, some of my artworks being 2.4 GB with gusts of 3 GB when working. RAM is cheap, hard drives to store not that much, but when someone wants that big picture you don't have to repaint. This file size may be too big for some computers, but work to the biggest size possible as it might prove worthwhile having done so some day. By example I did a series of G4Ms for a book and worked at only twice the size they were reproed at (8 inch) and at 350 dpi. Years later someone wanted a print measuring 36 inches wide and I had to repaint the damned thing, very irritating.

Yours,

Mark

[GiantFlyingRobots]

RE; GinatFlyingRobots' response; my comments seemed quite straightforward to me, but you have attributed a statement to me that I did not make which seems to lead to the confusion. In relation to the P-38 threads here;
http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...-were-we-2498/
http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...htning-s-1938/
I came across this post whilst researching my own artwork that I was hastily creating for a client. My artwork was to be used as the basis for the paint job on a real P-38 (namely 'Thoughts of Midnite') so everything had to be technically accurate. I posted in response to a question and later (for no good reason) posted more artwork as I was producing it. This started at page five of the thread and soon no other posting by the original artwork producers and latterly by yourself. What made me think it might have been because I joined the thread that it soon ceased, is when you started another thread with the opening words "Hopefully this will help get this joint back on track. Unless somebody decides to count the rivets" If my interpretation was wrong then so be it, but I would say that your current response containing 'daft', 'learned nothing' and 'conspiracy' etc is perhaps a little too defensive and leading me to suspect that my suspicion was correct. I try to imagine standing next to someone rather than being distanced by the digital world and moderate my language accordingly.

Mark, my reply actually had nothing to do with you, my post was in reply to something that "Aircraft Profiles" had written (since edited) where he apparently inadvertently quoted you with out making it clear that they were your words not his. I felt I had to take him to task, but now realize that it was a waste of time as the post that I was replying too (because of the mis-quotes) just made no sense at all, and it threw everything out of context, including your reply to me. So in actual fact I never called you daft etc I thought I was calling "Aircraft Profiles" daft etc. If you had read his pre-edited post you'd understand. So you suspicions (whatever they are) are way of the ...um...Mark.

Now I understand that you have had a rough time around here of late, and for that Im sorry, but what you have written about the P-38 is just plain old rubbish. I've just had a look at both those links and cant for the life of me see what the problem is I made no adverse comment about your work, other than a little mild criticism of the weathering. As for the "counting rivets" thing I would have thought that it was a obvious and light hearted joke aimed at my own work, take a little time, look at many of my reply's and you will have a better understanding of my self depreciating 'humour'. Subtlety can be a difficult thing to decipher in the written word.

As for why the P-38 thread by ZAMEX finished, take another look, it had obviously run its race and was done. As far as I can tell it had nothing whatsoever to do with your contribution. The funny thing about that thread is that I always thought it was my comments mild as they are (second from last) that somehow offended you, as its the last time that I recall ever seeing you around here. Which was a shame as I was looking forward to seeing how you did/didn't address my concerns.

As for my P-38 thread, like most of my projects its on-going and probably never ending.

Again, I'm sorry for the mis-understanding, I shouldn't have weighed in when I did, but In my own defence, look again at my post and see who it is that I thought I was talking too. IT WAS NEVER YOU...Mark.

You really ought consider posting here more often. It'll be good for you.

[Supah]

Mark: For your non profile art, do you do those digitally too? Could you describe your workflow for those? Do you use a photo of a scene as an example or do you make a sketch on paper and scan that? What I mainly notice in non profile art is that the technical representation isn't the biggest hurdle, true artistry lies in getting things like good composition. In that respect the medium really doesn't matter.

[Aircraftprofiles]

Looks like everything is about it be sorted out (more or less)...i think this tread have strayed so far from its original intention so i Think i'll refrain form posting any more of my phantoms in here. Thanks to those who have help me along the way
Daft as i may be: this is AP signing off

[JMSmith]

hey mark,

you dragged this up again not me the first glimps of it was probably on my site years ago, as this is now no longer excists its no help, i know i posted them on the B26 site but when i dont know

[GiantFlyingRobots]

Looks like everything is about it be sorted out (more or less)...i think this tread have strayed so far from its original intention so i Think i'll refrain form posting any more of my phantoms in here. Thanks to those who have help me along the way
Daft as i may be: this is AP signing off

Man, this thread is FUBAR, I wish that I had never entered it, and would delete my posts, but that would just make it even less comprehensible than it is now!

Now you are going to stop contributing to this site, for a slight that I never actually made, and came about from a your misquote of somebody else's words.

Now that is daft.

I'm so done with this thread, everything I have touched in it has turned to shit.

I'm off to have a lay down my head hurts.