T-34 Medium Tank family -- a tribute to Thierry Vallet

[Mangas]

This looks so good that if I ever get around to doing another armour project I'm going to call it a tribute to Mangas!

Beautiful work Anton.

Thanks, James! I really appreciate it!

P.S. I would be glad to see some of your armour projects, but I couldn't find any in FB...

[GiantFlyingRobots]

There's nothing to see I'm afraid. I lost all my armour projects and mountains of reference material in a double hard drive failure a couple of years ago and until a week or so ago I hadn't started the process of redoing them. Fortunately I have an older version of the sdkfz.250 to work from, it just has flattened versions of the wheels and tracks which I'm slowly getting around to. The Leopard II will need to be re-done from scratch unfortunately.

[Mangas]

I'm sorry to hear that, mate. (Btw, did you use 2xHDD configured as RAID 0, cause I do it also?)
But maybe you did posted the ready profiles somewhere else besides FB? I'd be glad to see that 'since I'm quite new to painting "armor" stuff...

[GiantFlyingRobots]

There's this one, although as pointed out late it had some 'issues' none of which were insurmountable. Unfortunately its gone forever.

http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...ead.php?t=2581

Then there's this one. I lost most of the super detailed work like the wheels, tracks the armament all of which were complete. On the bright side I do much better work now.

http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/foru...ead.php?t=3089

As I mentioned it the mountain of armour reference data that last when I had the crash that has stopped me getting back to it.

I have a double back-up system now, but knowing my luck the house will burn down in a bushfire.

[Mangas]

O.K., guys. I have kind of problem here. I'm trying to make a branch of an autumn tree (no leaves), but I really can't imagine how the drop shadows would look like on the armor.
I have a feeling something is not right. Can you confirm that? I would be glad to hear your suggestions on how to make it more realistic.

The WIP image with branch but no shadows:



The image with drop shadows:

[BLOWHARD]

Tough one. The tree is three dimensional and the branches are going in all directions...unless it's a flat branch. Try altering the shadows of some of the branches using a separate layer for the shadow rather than a mechanically made drop shadow. Also it's not flat against the tank. You've got the side, and the box and even the mud guard. The shadow should show the differences in distance from the armor. I think the shadow would go from being close, almost no existent to the upper hull edge, slope away at an angle and the separate at the box on the mug guard and the slope on the box as well. If you post a picture of your tank without the branch, and a psd/png of the branch I'll be glad to give it a try.

[Mangas]

If you post a picture of your tank without the branch, and a psd/png of the branch I'll be glad to give it a try.

Dave, please check your PM.

[BLOWHARD]

Uh...it will obviously take a better man than I I thought getting it to drift over the shapes would be easier. Still, it's not bad I guess.

I would have sent you the PSDs but since I had to chop it up so much the file was too ugly. I think you can see what I did though, stretching and skewing it to slant away from itself on the hull. I made a few shadows using the branch to make selections and then varied the fathering for closer and farther away shadows. The hard part is the branch itself makes it hard to see the complex shadow under it. It's so busy the shadows and branch merge. Maybe it doesn't matter getting it any better than this? The one twig near the base of the branch needs to be fixed though, I missed that. It needs to come closer. Anyway, maybe it will give you some ideas of how to tackle the problem. Does anyone else will have any other solutions? Where is Ugo? He does a lot of work with figure shadows on aircraft.

[BLOWHARD]

Now looking at them, yours is is looking pretty good.

[Mangas]

Thanks very much, Dave, for the help.
But I decided to skip making this branch so far. My reasons are:
1. To make just one branch is no sense. If it is a branch of a birch tree (very common for middle Russia) used for disguise -- then there should be a lot of them.
2. If to make alot of branches used for disguise -- then there should be some leaves (yellow for autumn) on them.
So, assuming all that -- it's another type of work. I think i'll skip it for now. Maybe I'll get back to it later.
If I have time -- I'll visit a park not far from my place to make some photoes of the birch-trees and bushes and pine-trees. Then I'll sort the images and 'll think something out.


Anyway, thanks for the advices about making proper shadows. I'll keep that in mind.