Graeme's profiles

[Gingie]

Hey gang, here's some of my profiles from about 5 years ago. I was on parental leave with our first child and wanted a quiet hobby with no noxious fumes that I could do in baby's room. So I decided to teach myself how to draw in photoshop 7. Jeebus... I just realized I wrote 5 years ago... where does the time go when you have kids??

In this thread, I'll try to show the profiles in chronological order. The learning curve on PS can be pretty steep, but once you figure out layers and fills, you can be churning out profiles fairly quick. 

My first attempt at digital profiles is a Canadian Skyhawk.



And a bit of clumsy attempt at making a super Skyhawk. I was more concerned with giving a weathered appearance to the finish than refined drawing



First attempt at using a layer to change the colour:

[Logan Hartke]

Welcome, Gingie!  Reminds me of the Canadian Gripen that I did when I first started (and a Canadian Mi-24 Hind).  Well done!  I look forward to your future profiles here!

Cheers,

Logan

[Gingie]

Next up is a B-24. Still trying to get the hang of shifting bits around. This sequence shows my modification to a single tail, then adding a lonnnnnng nose, and finally moving the wings lower on the fuselage.



I started looking closer at some other profiler's work and tried to get a hang of highlights, shading, shadows, and glass. Some RCN colours...gotta love EDSG/DSG!



And a boring unification scheme:


Tactical Airlift colours (like the Buffalo and Hercs)


Why would the RCAF Movers need a MAD boom etc? So, off they went.


Always liked the 3-colour wraparound scheme..this thing is reminding me more of a Buffalo now:

[Gingie]

Cheers Logan! I hope to find some time to do more profiles. I've got a couple Army-themed ones partly done.

[Logan Hartke]

Very nice.  Some of the best-looking Liberator variants I've ever seen.  Reminds me more than a bit of this:



Also has a bit of a Globemaster look there with that low wing.

Cheers,

Logan

[Doom!]

Nicely done  :)   If I hadn't seen the Liberator origin I'd have never guessed it in the later profiles.

[Litvyak]

Unification sucks.

Great profiles, though! :)

[apophenia]

Great stuff Graeme! I love your Liberator evolutions 

[Gingie]

Cheers!

Wow, that Liberator (Privateer??) does look a lot like mine! And you are right, I never noticed how much of a Globemaster look there was to it. Might have been subconcious as my Uncle was in the USAF on Globemasters.

A couple more colourful versions... I think SAR yellow is pretty much a mandatory WHIF scheme! You can see that the markings don't seem to blend with the finish. I think I was doing all my shading first, and then adding the markings on afterwards.


This scheme was inspired by Air Ontario Convair 580's that would fly over my childhood home. I was trying to get the hang of bare metal finishes with this one:

 

[Logan Hartke]

They look nice, Graeme.  You'll want to look at how you're doing the hard shadows on cylinders, though.  You've got them doing the impossible curve around the bottom of the fuselage, for one.



http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/forums/f29-aircraft-profile-painting/shadows-fuselages-3439/

Look at this topic for a discussion on it.  Also, you've got some funkiness going on with the spinner on the second profile, too.

Cheers,

Logan

[Gingie]

Trying to develop the bare metal finish look here (In the meatime, I'd started work on my CP-140 and CV-122 profiles. These Liberators I came back to after a few more hours on Photoshop):

 

Adapting a Lancaster SAR Scheme over top:

 

[Gingie]

Logan - many thanks for the tip! Part of the problem in not drawing from life is guessing where shadows go. I'll check out the link for sure - digging up these old profiles has got me interested in doing some over. Though I'm afraid of how much I've forgotten over the past half decade!

[Logan Hartke]

No problem.  Also, I did a tutorial on Natural Metal Finishes a number of years ago, though it has changed somewhat since that time in practice.

Finally, if you're fine just learning these things on your own, tell me to keep my advice to myself and I'll gladly just sit back and enjoy the show.  Your profiles are lovely and need nothing.  I just like to offer help in case someone wants it.  A lot of my lessons were ones I had to learn myself, though you can see my evolution over the past 4 years here.

Cheers,

Logan

[Gingie]

Any & all comments are welcome!

My biggest issue with PS7 was sitting down doing something, and *knowing* there HAD to be an easier way. One of my earliest examples: Drawing individual rivets! Then someone told me about brush spacing to put a dot down and that would save me 10 hours.

Other things that confounded me were drawing straight lines (found out to hold the shift key - at least, thats what I think it was, so long ago now!), and drawing concentric circles.

Are the later versions of PS (CS?) more user friendly?

[Gingie]

Next up are a few CP-140's. There was talk of these becoming a ground surveillance aircraft (it may have happened, I never kept track). I thought some camouflage Aurora's might be interesting.



And with some colour. This was done before I had figured out shading. The result is very 2-D, but the payoff is you can crank out profiles real quick, it's all good!

 

And now with some shading and some some WIF cam for a mid-east theatre



The next profiles come pretty quick, I just change the colours in the layers, its really a matter of minutes to change colour. This is what I love about digital art over paint & paper (that, and the ability to erase mistakes!)

 


Couple solid colours
 


And trying to do black, so making the panel lines a little lighter for some contrast:

 

[Logan Hartke]

Are the later versions of PS (CS?) more user friendly?

I don't think they're especially more user-friendly.  The do add some more functionality, though.  I use CS5 at the moment.  Just use Google searches and YouTube tutorials for basic help.  More specific help generally comes either from the experts on Simmers Paint Shop or (more often) just trial and error figuring it out myself.

Thanks,

Logan

[Gingie]

Lastly, we have the Osprey. These were the last ones I worked on before ending my parental leave to go to Kandahar. I came back from the mission to a nearly 2 year old daughter and discovered my 'hobby time' had been drastically reduced. I hope to pick up the tablet and start in on these again...the work I've seen on this forum is literally inspiring stuff.




I found out that PS brushes come in all kinds of wacky shapes. I took one and made it into an eraser to create the chipping on the whitewash:


Same brush used, only this time with grey paint to 'add' chips:

[elmayerle]

I showed these around the office (I'm a design engineer on Bell's part of the V-22) and they were much appreciated.

Excellent stuff!!

[Gingie]

Some Antipodean schemes:





Sometimes you get into a project and notice the base drawing is wrong. With the Osprey, I realized I had misinterpreted the engine exhaust (there's probably other areas too!). A good lesson in spending more time getting the basic profile right. For this RNZAF scheme, I also tried refining some of my highlighting:

[Logan Hartke]

Those Ospreys are fantastic!  I love the glass on the windshield, especially.  Are you open to requests somewhere down the line?

Sometimes you get into a project and notice the base drawing is wrong. With the Osprey, I realized I had misinterpreted the engine exhaust (there's probably other areas too!). A good lesson in spending more time getting the basic profile right.

Story of my life if you read my thread.

Cheers,

Logan

[Gingie]

Thanks guys!

Requests - sure, I'll take them. No promises of a rapid turn-around this decade though 

One of my other favourite WIF schemes...Swedish Splinter cam.



This one adapted from a USMC CH-53:
 

And a take-2 on my CF SAR Yellow. I was either prescient or ripped off (LOL) because when I went to the CADSI Arms Show in Ottawa last year, Bell had a fuselage painted up pretty close to what I had drawn back in '07:


The mock-up for the FW SAR replacement from last summer:

[Logan Hartke]

Those are lovely, the Swedish bird, especially.

Cheers,

Logan

[elmayerle]

*chuckle* Since I work for Bell, I'll shift the blame to Boeing for that since they build the fuselage.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Graeme,

Always good to see your V-22 Osprey profiles.   Liked them all the first time around when you shared the profiles at what if modelers forums.

[Logan Hartke]

You sure those were his you were thinking of?

Thanks,

Logan

[Jeffry Fontaine]

You sure those were his you were thinking of?

Yes they are the same profiles.  Saved same files to my hard drive back in February, 2008 when I was still free to roam about what if modelers.

[Gingie]

Hi - yep these were up at WIM and Hyperscale. I've gone though 5 ISP's since then, so much , if not all, of my hosted profiles and builds are red-x's. Now I've got a flickr account and registered here I'll repost the old along with my current stuff.

[Logan Hartke]

Ah, alright, then.  What was your username on the What If Forums?

Thanks,

Logan

[Cliffy B]

Nice entrance man!  I'm really digging those B-24s variants.  You really managed to give them a Commonwealth feel with that design, bravo 

Feel free to ask me any Photoshop questions you'd like.  I'm still using CS3 currently and really can't find a reason to buy 6.

-Mike

[Gingie]

Thanks Cliffy. I'm still using PS7, but recently upgraded a 10 year old (!) PC with 512KB Ram to a 6 GB quad core deal, so I might grab some new software to go along with.

Logan, I think my username at WIM was Gingie or Ginge.

[Logan Hartke]

I found it, though as you suspected, the links are broken.  You're going to need to reupload the C-17s eventually, too.

Cheers,

Logan

[apophenia]

Could have used 161906 in Kandahar, eh? I love your take-2 on CF SAR Yellow. Boeing's CANSEC mockup is okay but your lightning stripe is much better proportioned!

[Jeremak]

That last Ospreys look great: specially compared to fist Skyhawks... Keep a good work.

[Gingie]

Logan - I'd totally forgotten about the C-17's. I was doing the profile work on them as WHIF in spring '07, and then I think we actually got the real ones around that time. They aren't on my hard drive, so they may be gone for good.

Apophenia - RCAF Osprey's in KAF, that would have been a sight! I worked right on the flightline and managed to get a photo-permit card. I had my camera with me a few times and got some nice pics, though, the RCAF Chinooks & Griffons came after I left. I will always wonder why the RCAF waited nearly 10 years to send something more than tac/strat airlift.

Jeremak - Thanks! Even though I still have much to learn in building profiles, I hope that other folks looking at the Osprey's realize that we all have to start somewhere, hence my posting the Skyhawks.

[apophenia]

... I will always wonder why the RCAF waited nearly 10 years to send something more than tac/strat airlift.

Everyone seemed convinced that the Griffon couldn't handle KAF's operating conditions. In the end, the Griffs did pretty well (which the Italians and Pakistanis who were operating B412s in the region could've told us).

[Litvyak]

Gingie: are you able/permitted to shed some light on why any photos/info on the CH-178s is so bloody hard to come by?

[Logan Hartke]

... I will always wonder why the RCAF waited nearly 10 years to send something more than tac/strat airlift.

Everyone seemed convinced that the Griffon couldn't handle KAF's operating conditions. In the end, the Griffs did pretty well (which the Italians and Pakistanis who were operating B412s in the region could've told us).

I never did understand that.  What was the logic there?  Everything I'd read seemed to indicate that the 412 was good on power and operators in the mountains loved it.  Isn't it used by Peru, Chile, Italy, and Pakistan?  Don't they do a bit of mountain flying every now and again?

Cheers,

Logan

[Gingie]

I know that the RAF Lynx did not fly during summer months, and even in late spring was only permitted to operate below certain temps. So I'm not sure if it was as much a factor of altitude as it was 50*C temps on the runway.

Not sure what the impact of heat was on the Griffon. Maybe that once crew + ammo were added, there was not a lot of weight left over for any meaningful   cargo? Just guessing mind you.

Photos of the CH178 are hard to come by because they were being used by SOF, and they have tighter rules and controls on imagery. Additionally, there would be a political dimension to the usage of another med/heavy lift helicopter while the Chinook D and G projects were ongoing. Those photos of 407 that were leaked was not supposed to have come out, the reporter who did it is notorious for getting his facts all messed up from unqualified sources...sorry almost felt a rant coming on. I doubt we will be keeping them on strength with the new Chinooks coming. In fact, with the end of the combat mission in Afghanistan, I'm not even sure we are flying them at all.

[Litvyak]

Thanks for the reply! Last I heard of them, they were in storage at Graf Ignatievo AB in Bulgaria (at least one with some holes in it), and even there they're being very tight about them being photographed; IIRC all the Canadian markings are blanked out, too.

Too bad, though, I'd kinda love to see them in the standard green scheme... I quite love Hips anyways. I did do a couple of profiles for my Alternate Canada: http://altcan.webs.com/ch178.htm

In any event, I'm glad the photos /did/ get out... I've got one of those (RW, not AltCan) in the works!

[elmayerle]

Hmm, I wonder how 412EPIs would do there.  They have upgraded PT6T engines.  What would be nice would be 214STs upgraded to a four-blade rotor system.

[apophenia]

... Not sure what the impact of heat was on the Griffon. Maybe that once crew + ammo were added, there was not a lot of weight left over for any meaningful   cargo? Just guessing mind you.  ...

That's what I heard too. Still could've been useful earlier on flying convoy escort missions though.

Photos of the CH178 are hard to come by because they were being used by SOF, and they have tighter rules and controls on imagery...

And that in itself is a revelation! At the time, the story was that the CH178s were strictly humping supplies to FOBs. SOF makes things much more interesting