Ol' Scrapiron

My latest digital painting features the Boeing Model 247D as I saw it arriving in Seattle to complete the very last flight of the Type. The digital painting is 10x30 inches at 500ppi in 16-bit RGB. Here are a few cropped areas that show the level of detail a little better as it really has to be seen up close to be appreciated. - - - - - With my daughter graduating from high school and also receiving her AA, my time at the computer was more limited and there

FINISHED 10x20" (500ppi) digital painting of Yak-3M I have seen at Northwest airshows and at Oshkosh AirVenture 2024. Here are a few cropped areas that show the level of detail a little better as it really has to be seen up close to be appreciated - - - - - Hope this has been an educational journey for all who came along for the ride. Steve

Apologies for the reduction in size of the images. Apparently the links I had used had a shelf-life and the early posts were getting the old "missing graphic" I was able to upload all the images to one of my spare sites, but in the process they were resized to only 600px wide. That's too small to be appreciated. I will change the settings to a larger size and then re-upload them. I think the filenames will stay the same so the links in these posts will just update to the larger files. It's always something! LOL Thank you for followi

OK, someone finally noticed that that engine was running with no one in the cockpit... such a dangerous situation. I remedied that by getting to the Cockpit group. This is a Yak-3M owned by a gentleman here in the Northwest, and I've seen him at a few local shows and also at Oshkosh last year. I don't think this will get him through a TSA checkpoint, but I was going for the essence rather than as photo ID. That wraps up the list of groups/subassemblies, but there is still much to do. I will do a hard comparison between my art

Wow, the landing gear on the far side took a ton of work. Not only is it fairly complex, but the new gear had to match up with how I did the gear on the near side. - Just this one section took all the time I could dedicate for the day, and looking at it here I already see some bits that need to be adjusted (or are missing outright) Actually, I think I missed posting about the tail gear and stab/tail/rudder sections, so here's a peek at that area. That's all for tonight. Steve

Hardly any time to spend at the computer today, but I did manage to do some work on the far wing. One of the benefits of working in a layered file is that I can easily swap in a different background to see if the highlighting has been over- or under-done. on that far wing there is a lot of white (almost white) background that can hide the true shape of the top of the wing where the white reflection/glare is. Here's the same WIP, but with a colored background... and everything looks about right. Since I was toying

I kicked off today's efforts by giving the gear someplace to retract. STEP 6: the near wing went together well enough that I didn't stop to make intermediate screen grabs. I might dissect it to explain some of the techniques that portray rivets, reflections and tenting... all cool little tricks I wish I had figured out during the early projects. The real plane I am basing this on can be found at some of the Northwest air shows, and I have had a chance to see it a few times. Until now I had not realized that the beat up f

After doing the belly scoop, I decided to dig into the near landing gear. At this point the wheel and the doors look pretty good, but there will be more shadowing needed when I work on that wing. Even though these are separate subassemblies, they have to look good together as a whole. The tires and doors are close to how they'll look in the finished project. Note that there are only a few pieces to the leg at this point (there will be more for details that need to be added) and that the holes in the scissor parts really are actually holes that show through to wh

STEP 4: More work on the fuselage. Fasteners, panel lines, dings and wrinkles, highlights and shading, etc. It's starting to look like a real object, rather than flat colors painted on a two-dimensional canvas. A better look at the fasteners and panels. Subtle shading and highlights are painted to make the panels look like separate pieces of the plane's skin. Bear in mind this will be considerably enlarged compared to the size of the final print.

Sandbox for the fuselage (actually a continuation of the spinner file) Just like oils on a palette, I just keep blending colors until I find what I want. I am able to save the best versions of the colors into the file so I can easily load them when I do other areas of the plane that use the same colors (like the wings). However, in the final version there is probably no area that will actually be the raw color. I have already added a slight gradient of black to clear over the main fuselage to add a subtle tone of shading. On top of that is a random brush I call

STEP 2: By creating "Sandbox" files, I'm able to work on the subassemblies separately without the burden of hundreds of layers bogging things down. Then when I have made substantial progress in one of the "groups" I duplicate that group from the sandbox back into the original file -- in this case, the prop/spinner group -- and change the group name to reflect that this is version 2 for the props. In the "Sandbox" file, I use various brushes in Photoshop to start painting the different parts of the plane, using my own photos as reference. I add new layers for coloring a

I'm going to do something bold here, and walk through all the steps of my new digital painting, by updating this post with each "Work in Progress" stage as I go. This will take some time... but I hope it will be worth the ride. STEP 1 (A): The first step is to block in all the little bits and pieces that make up up the airplane. In this case I am starting with 97 individual "blocks" Of course those 97 pieces are just a starting point to make sure I have things in the proper order (like the gear door is in front of the tire, which is in front of the gear

This project was inspired by seeing the rare plane displayed at the USS Alabama Memorial's air museum last fall. The airframe itself was a bit simpler without a bunch of stenciling to recreate, but I really loved exploring the turkey feathers exhaust. I had taken a few walkaround photos from the other side, but this angle was from the reference pics I shot while on the boarding platform for the submarine that is displayed nearby. A bit far to capture the details, but I was able to work out what I needed using the closer shots at ground level. The digital painting was done at 500ppi

Hot on the heels of the Helldiver, I carried the mojo momentum into a a new project featuring a vintage Travel Air based on reference photos I took during a family road trip last summer. We stumbled into Tillamook OR just after the air museum closed for the night (I was actually just planning to get some pics of the massive blimp hangar). A gentlemen was still packing up the Travel Air "Magic One" that he had been offering rides in during the day. Even though there was no chance to sell a ride, he gladly showed me around the plane and shared its history for maybe a half hour. A great conversat

This project was one I knew I'd have to do after seeing the newly restored Helldiver arrive at Oshkosh last year. I took as many reference photos as I could before they opened up panels for display and am glad I did. After a couple days to review it with fresh (non-tired) eyes, I will be sending to the print shop to have a giclee made -- digital painting is 10x20 inches at 500ppi in 16-bit RGB. Here are a few cropped areas that show the level of detail a little better as it really has to be seen up close to be appreciated. - - -