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WIP- The Birth of the Grovers


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I'm getting a lot of feeling of motion from the background except for the buildings and vehicles, will those receive motion blur as well afterwards ?

Great Update Felix ... :thumbsup:

Gregg

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Gosh, Holmes...I don't know what to say, so I'll just post a little more :banana:.

sg41510_web.jpg

Almost ready for shadows, etc.

GREAT!! so you are good to GO !!! woo hooo... :banana:

That is what happens when you have an artist in the family{sister is trained artist and studied architecture and nudes{ :) }..she was a F.R.S.A and Also held some thing like similar for her Architecture degree too......

Edited by HOLMES
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GREAT!! so you are good to GO !!! woo hooo... :cheers:

That is what happens when you have an artist in the family{sister is trained artist and studied architecture and nudes{ :thumbsup: }..she was a F.R.S.A and Also held some thing like similar for her Architecture degree too......

Holmes, you should give it a shot, artistic talent often runs in a family.

"El Terror" is mostly done. I have to refine a few areas and add the cast shadows, then on to the other Sabres and the Bedford refueler. Working to achieve a natural metal look has actually been fun (and a lot of work :whistle: ).

sg41910a_web.jpg

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Hello Felixdk

Thanks for that morale booster ! :thumbsup:

I can draw but not as good as the others in the family..Did get good grades and came first in art classes but you guys BLOW ME away...

anyways back to your painting...

shadows and paint will surely give this one the depth and will look EXQUISITE on any wall that it graces!!

Its is already looking 3 dimensional on the canvas...

:woo:

Good Show!! :)

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Thanks guys, I'm pleased that this is going as well as it is; I had artist's block for a couple of months dreading a total FUBAR on the natural metal parts. Now I think I'll go back to the 50s and USAFE again for my next one. I love the colors.

2 Sabres down, 1 to go.

sg42610_web.jpg

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I really do love Sabres and these may have been the best looking IMHO.

Refueling is almost complete. I have to clean it up some and add shadows (and the refueling crew <_<)

sg42810.jpg

A detail view

sg42810_detail.jpg

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Thanks Gregg. It was pointed out that the paint on RAF vehicles had more blue in the gray than I portrayed, so I made the Bedford bluer and added a ground crewman by the far Sabre to get a feel for the scale. I've started painting the airfield buildings. The colors are my best guess from the photos that are available (black and white mostly). I'm trying to remember the old Nissen huts at RAF Chicksands when I was stationed there in the 60s and I think I remember them being an off white/cream color (maybe from age?). Anyway, I've got to keep moving on this :D

sg50410_web.jpg

Actually, looking at the image now, I think I'll make the crewman a bit bigger.

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The bluer color actually helps the Fueler pop more in the background without it being overwhelming ...

I like the crewman too, like you said though, a 'smidge' bigger maybe ...

The whole scene is really coming together now ... :thumbsup:

Gregg

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Judging by my experience standing in front of the F-86F at the New England Air Museum having Walter Mitty type dreams, a six foot person comes up about to the level of the gun ranging radar in the nose, so I adjusted the figure by the fire bottle to that size and will add another figure to the port wing and maybe one by the Bedford. I'd love to put a fire engine parked across the road from the Watch Office, but the Fire Station appears to have been moved there later on in the life of RAF Shepherds Grove and I have no idea what the building that was there in 1951 was. Now back to working on the Watch Office.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 7 months later...

This painting has been sticking in my craw for 6 months. There was something that was nagging at me and I'm still not entirely sure what it was, however.... I've found some new info that suggests that I had the buildings to the north of the control tower and the roadways/taxiways wrong. I've deleted all the improper buildings and rearranged the paths and managed a self inflicted artistic Heimlich maneuver. I'm rolling again.

Rearranged the scenery, textured the dispersal and roadways and added more motion. I still have to add cast shadows and more personnel on the ground. The cloud shadow is tentative and as advised by someone that I trust, I'll probably drop it.

Time to get this sucker done.

92FIS_1.jpg

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Man Felix! this just keeps getting better and better. I tend to agree about the cloud shadow. It seems a bit distracting. Maybe try toning it down first and if it's still too much, then get rid of it. I think the idea of a cloud shadow is good to help give the work depth, but it seems too stark as is.

Something else of a MINOR thing. It doesn't really even stand out but the text on the tail of the foreground plane seems maybe slightly out of perspective with the rest of the surface. Like the text is either angled or sticking off the tail very very slightly. Again, it's so minor I wouldn't really even worry about it, but something to think about if you're doing this larger later on. It may even be an optical illusion because of the lightning bolts...or my eyes may be skewed. Either way, this is an AWESOME work.

Bill

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Wow, I'm glad you've picked this one back up ...

All the changes look great ... I'm in agreement about the cloud shadow also ... It doesn't seem to fit ... :cheers:

Looking forward to more ...

Gregg

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Thanks Bill and Gregg, that big shadow is going away, although I want to learn to use that effect. Bill, I think what throws you off about the tail numbers is that the area around them that they left in natural metal is not rectangular. If you look at photos of the actual a/c, you see that the front of the unpainted area is vertical, but the rear slopes toward the rudder at the top.

Thanks Mark, you can get a great sense of speed looking down that it would be hard to duplicate at altitude.

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I like the changes, take a second look at the car next to the CT, its out of scale with the building. I think the refuelers have the same problem. I'm in agreement about the clouds, but if you glaze the shape with the ground colors, it will straighten up.

Keep at it, its really coming along

Steve

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I like the changes, take a second look at the car next to the CT, its out of scale with the building. I think the refuelers have the same problem. I'm in agreement about the clouds, but if you glaze the shape with the ground colors, it will straighten up.

Keep at it, its really coming along

Steve

Steve,

The Watch Office is a 12779/41 type converted to 15371/41 (smaller lower front windows) from what I can tell. It's 34.5' X 36.75' and the platform on the second floor should be at about 9-10' above the ground. The car is just a generic pre-war type upright Ford/Austin/Morris. My original intent was to put an MC-TC there (still might do it). Pretty much everybody that I was stationed over there with wanted to go home with a British sports car and I imagine it was the same in 1951 (I wanted a Lotus Elan, but Lyndon Johnson found out about my plans and had me drop-shipped to the Aleutians :explode: ). I'll give the size another look.

I actually used MoD site plans to create a 3D version of the airfield that I loaded into Microsoft FSX so that I could get the look of the airfield correct. The refueling scene was laid out very carefully so that the Sabre and Bedford would fit correctly into the scene. A lot of head scratching went into that: WIP F-86A Painting .

This is being done digitally for now, although I do have the drawing on an 18"X24" piece of gessoboard to eventually be done in acrylics.

92FIS_2.jpg

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Saloon gone, one MG TC ready to paint. I gave it a Brooklands windscreen, I always liked they way they looked on MG T_s. I'm wondering if an XK-120 might complete it.

F-86_TC.jpg

Edited by felixdk
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