Newbie painting an F/A-18A+

[Rolex]

OK, last update for tonight, gotta work tomorrow so don't know how much time I'll have, hope to get back to it soon. This should give you all time to nit pick my work (please do).

[Rolex]

Another update, did some work on the paint scheme, stencils, CATM-9 and Sparrow.

Not getting much input, I think the nose looks a little flat, so I may try and rework that tomorrow.

Would appreciate anything you guys have to tell me.

[GiantFlyingRobots]

Hello Rolex, and uh...welcome aboard. Sorry...but somebody had to make the obvious joke.

Looks to be coming along nicely. It must be very satisfying undertaking a project that you have a tangible link to.

I just have a few question regarding your workflow if you don't mind.

As with all things here there are no right or wrong answers. I doubt that any two members go about drawing a profile in the same manor and I for one am always interested in how somebody new to this goes about it.

What size are you working at?
The bigger the better of course. 7500 X whatever @ 300 px seems to about the norm here.

Are you drawing this profile as a series of separate editable objects, or is it one mask containing a series of sub masks to define the shape?
Personally I like to draw a profile as a series of editable objects, it gives you the flexibility to add a greater degree of subtlety and makes it easy to change things like ordinance load-outs.

Are you reliant on found line-art (which is fine) as the basis of your profile, or are you creating your own panel lines?
The reason for this question is that if you use found art it will inevitably be pretty low rez and it will result in an outline around the profile that will ultimately detract from the finished possibly printed work.

As for the problem at hand. As an example use dark gray with a black shadow instead of using a flat 100% black. Hitting your stark highlight with more Gaussian blur should help achieve the desired result.

Btw. I love the Hornet. I even have one in the early stage of development just waiting for a slot.

[Rolex]

Hi GFR,

Thanks for the response! It is satisfying, but nerve racking in a way, this being my first project and all. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I want it done right, and my skillset needs a little work.

The size of the project is 6000X2000 600dpi, I wasn't sure where to start, so I figured that would be a good place. I do think I should have went larger as some of the detail is hard to do at that scale.

If I understand your question correctly, I'm drawing this as one object, but with multiple layers in the object. Each is separated into sets, like the CATM-9, etc. I'm not doing each part as a separate file then bringing it in.

Because this was my first project I scanned in a side view from a Hornet Walk Around book I use for plastic models. I do want to rescribe all the panel lines before the project is over, but I'm using the scanned panel lines for now. I tried using Illustrator to make the paths as one of the tutorials suggested, but because this is a scan, I think, it makes two path for each line (one inside and one outside). Not sure what I'm doing wrong there.

Thanks for the shadowing tip. I did the Shadows using 100% black on a separate layer and changed the layer properties to Color Burn.

For Highlights I used 100% white in a Color Dodge layer. Both using a soft wide brush to build up the effect.

Again, thanks for the help and keep the comments/suggestions coming. I need all the help I can get.

Bryan

[Supah]

Have to say, even though the shadows look a bit simple at the moment, this has some real potential

[Rolex]

Thanks Supah!

[Rolex]

Here's a small update. Haven't had a lot of time to work on it.

[Rolex]

Another update, probably the last for the weekend.

[gamary]

Looking good so far.

Here are a couple of suggestions:

The LERX shadow has the same angle as the stabilizer. The stabilizer's sweep angle is much lower, so the shadow should be different (i.e. closer to the vertical than it currently is).

Also the LERX shadow seems to extend under the wing, but the wing itself does not seem to have a shadow.



This might help you understand what I mean. If not, please let me know.

The wing shadow should appear a further aft than what I showed, but i think you'll get the point.

And the centreline tank should also have a shadow cast onto it, no?

HTH.