Logan's Profiles - SdKfz 231 Halbkettenfahrzeug

[Logan Hartke]

I'm impressed with how you've used Photoshop for these profiles, Logan. I had started out that way but very early on vector-based software was more suited to how I work (currently using Illustrator CS2). One of the things that a lot of folks don't realize is that there are a lot of similarities to kit building in "assembling" these profiles as I have my layers based upon sections and sub-assemblies not unlike a model kit. We also have to take into consideration weathering and paint schemes and even the scale effect at times.

Thanks for the detailed explanation of your approach!

Thanks, Sentinel Chicken!  Your profiles always have great lines, colors, and details.  They always look so crisp and clean.

One of the advantages to me doing the profiles in Photoshop, however, is that there is a finite limit to what you can do.  This is only an advantage because of the human element making the profile.  If I used vector art, I'd be tempted to include way more detail in the profile than could ever be made out by anyone.  I'm the sort of person that would only realize this after I'd finished typing up the ingredients on the pack of Beemans gum in the pocket of the leather jacket on the pilot.  Fortunately, once I hit pixels, I can call it well and truly done in Photoshop.  That can be a real advantage when you get to the obsession stage of a profile.

Even with the limitations of Photoshop vs Illustrator, I still have a 3 foot wide giant graphic of the XB-51 profile that a professional printer friend of mine was kind enough to do for me with no loss in quality at all.  You can read the small print on the side of the plane.  Not bad for non-vector art!  I've always hated the monkeys that designed Illustrator, too.  In my use of the Adobe Creative Suite at work, Illustrator has always crashed on me far more often than Photoshop.  Illustrator's just less intuitive when I use it, too, even after about 5 years.  I've considered switching a few times, but I don't see it happening.  I'd rather just increase the resolution of the Photoshop images I do, something I've always done, anyway.

Cheers,

Logan

[Jeremak]

I also use a non-vector software, but it's Gimp, not Photoshop. In my PZL P.11 I had layers for (from the top): wires, white background (on top to mask some things), shadow, glass, tires, 8 laiers of lighting effect on different parts of plane, weathering layer (made of about 3-4 merged), 2 layers for rivetes, one for effect of corrugated sheet on tail, one for colour difference between fuselage panels, machine guns, leather in cockpit, two for texture, unseen lines, which on profile was based, and 11 layers for three different colour schemes. It's good that I keep all that files on my computer. Also: I know what you mean Logan, when you sey, that "layers goes wrong": I've had one that incicdent, with one of my WW1 profiles.

[RussC]

Hello, Logan. Just met you over on WI and now over here as well.

 

Russ

[Logan Hartke]

Thanks everyone!  Anyone want another profile?

In 1941, Germany turned its ire towards the Balkans, quickly rolling through Yugoslavia and Greece.  With them the whole time were the Stukas, hitting enemy bridges, tanks, strongpoints, and ships.  Nowhere would the Stuka become more feared than in the skies over the island of Crete.  The Royal Navy operated unchallenged in the Mediterranean at that time, establishing a protective steel ring around the island, thwarting Axis plans to control the Aegean Sea...or so they thought.  Junkers Ju 52s appeared in large numbers overhead on the 20th of May, dropping thousands of paratroopers on the Greek island.

While also supporting the Fallschirmjäger on the ground, the Stukas also sought out targets at sea, striking at the Royal Navy with near impunity, the Royal Air Force unable to contest the skies over Crete.  As the hard-fought battle for Crete shifted in favor of the Germans, the Royal Navy soon began a desperate rescue mission, evacuating the surviving Allied troops from the island.  The Stukas would once again make themselves known, striking at the British cruisers and destroyers fleeing the island.  Some ships were heavily damaged, limping into Alexandria many hours after the ordeal, but others were not so lucky taking their crews and soldiers to the bottom of the Mediterranean.

The profile above depicts a Ju 187 Wiking (former French V-187-F2 Viking) of Sturzkampfgeschwader 3 as it appeared during the devastating attacks on HMS Dido and HMS Orion on May 29th, 1941.

Things to note about this profile:

Nothing technically too hard about this one.  I used my previous German profile but gave it a good deal of weathering and a lot more detail.  Overall, I think it's a lot more polished than the previous German profile I did some time ago.

Cheers,

Logan

[Maverick]

Nice ships Logan.  My favourite has to be the Vichy one.

Regards,

John

[AXOR]

We want,of course...looks fantastic in luftwaffe markings ! :want:

Alex

[ChernayaAkula]

Jolly good stuff, Logan! Good to have you back in the profile business!  :)

This.......................... on floats!

[Sentinel Chicken]

One of the advantages to me doing the profiles in Photoshop, however, is that there is a finite limit to what you can do.  This is only an advantage because of the human element making the profile.  If I used vector art, I'd be tempted to include way more detail in the profile than could ever be made out by anyone.  I'm the sort of person that would only realize this after I'd finished typing up the ingredients on the pack of Beemans gum in the pocket of the leather jacket on the pilot.  Fortunately, once I hit pixels, I can call it well and truly done in Photoshop.  That can be a real advantage when you get to the obsession stage of a profile.

I've had this happen to me before. I call it "Mission Creep" in Illustrator. I once had a profile that I worked on for quite literally several months going insane on details before burning out. That taught me a lesson, now what I do depending upon what the illustration is going to be used for is to set hard limits on how closely I'll zoom in to work on a detail. The BAe-146 and A-7 Corsair profiles started out as experiments with these hard limits where I'd zoom no closer than 200%. I also had to keep myself from creating an object within the 100-200% range and then scaling it down, that's just cheating any sort of hard limits I'd set for myself. Over time it's forced me to be more efficient at Illustrator and to think of the gestalt of the whole illustration rather than going apeshit over something that in the finished product would be near invisible.

[Logan Hartke]

Thanks, guys, I'm glad you enjoyed it.  I always loved the German aircraft with yellow campaign markings.  Alright, next up, my first profile of the year (by my clock)!

As early as 1935, Germany began seriously investigating the construction of aircraft carriers for the Kriegsmarine.  At the same time Germany also set about developing an air wing for these carriers.  This would require aircraft suitable for shipboard use.  The design of a modern naval dive bomber met with some difficulty, the initial aircraft being an outdated biplane type.  When the construction of the Graf Zeppelin was placed on hold in 1939, efforts to create an air wing for it were also placed on hold.  After the fall of France, Germany again took a hard look at making the Graf Zeppelin operational.  By this time, a large number of Vought Vikings had been captured, some of the most recent in France having originally been built for the US Navy.  Because of its clear suitability for the role, it was quickly decided to make the “Ju 187 Wiking” the standard shipboard dive bomber of the Graf Zeppelin.

The first aircraft to be reassembled were transferred to Travemünde on the Baltic in Germany for testing using the catapults and arresting wires being tested for use with Germany’s carrier.  Many of these were incomplete, having been stripped of some US Navy-specific equipment, but it did not take long for those components to be fabricated and replaced.  Besides the obvious landing and takeoff trials were tests of naval camouflage, this early scheme being used on an ex-USN SB4U-2.  Inspired by German fighter units, it was also found to be reasonably suitable for the Ju 187 in its intended dive bombing role over water.  This aircraft was later lost during an Allied attack on Travemünde, being damaged beyond economical repair.

Things to note about this profile:

Much cleaner than most previous aircraft, as it's intended for use in Germany in a testing and training environment.  The research for this one was about the hardest thing, the serials of trial units not being well-documented in the least bit.

Cheers,

Logan

[Damian]

Geez Logan your profiles have come so far and are STUNNING! Can't wait to see what comes next.

[Maverick]

Very nice indeed.  You'll have to throw a hook on it and give it different camo for an operational KM unit.

Regards,

John

[lauhof52]

Very very nice german vikings! Top! :)

[Empty Handed]

Love the camo scheme on the See Wiking!

[Robert]

Lookin' good!

[jorel62]

AWESOME MAN!!!!!!!!

[Doom!]

Very Nice!

[Logan Hartke]

Thanks for the compliments, everyone!  Mav, it already has a tailhook, it's just fully retractable.  You want more schemes, though...

How about 3 more from Travemünde?  I'll post my previous write-up directly below this sentence and another new one underneath the 3 profiles.

As early as 1935, Germany began seriously investigating the construction of aircraft carriers for the Kriegsmarine.  At the same time Germany also set about developing an air wing for these carriers.  This would require aircraft suitable for shipboard use.  The design of a modern naval dive bomber met with some difficulty, the initial aircraft being an outdated biplane type.  When the construction of the Graf Zeppelin was placed on hold in 1939, efforts to create an air wing for it were also placed on hold.  After the fall of France, Germany again took a hard look at making the Graf Zeppelin operational.  By this time, a large number of Vought Vikings had been captured, some of the most recent in France having originally been built for the US Navy.  Because of its clear suitability for the role, it was quickly decided to make the “Ju 187 Wiking” the standard shipboard dive bomber of the Graf Zeppelin.

The first aircraft to be reassembled were transferred to Travemünde on the Baltic in Germany for testing using the catapults and arresting wires being tested for use with Germany’s carrier.  Many of these were incomplete, having been stripped of some US Navy-specific equipment, but it did not take long for those components to be fabricated and replaced.  Besides the obvious landing and takeoff trials were tests of naval camouflage, this early scheme being used on an ex-USN SB4U-2.  Inspired by German fighter units, it was also found to be reasonably suitable for the Ju 187 in its intended dive bombing role over water.  This aircraft was later lost during an Allied attack on Travemünde, being damaged beyond economical repair.

The overwhelming majority of Vikings used by the Luftwaffe at Travemünde were originally US Navy Vikings sent to France in the days shortly before France's surrender.  This included a pair of aircraft that had come directly from the factory to enter US Navy service possessing sequential construction numbers and Bureau Numbers.  Fittingly, they entered German military service and received sequential Stammkennzeichen.  While this is normal in units throughout the various armed forces of the world, it is less usual when the aircraft have already served in the colors of three different air arms in their lifetime.  This was not lost on the pilots and ground crew of Travemünde, so the aircraft were named Freya and Freyr after the twin gods of Norse mythology, worshipped by the Vikings a millennia earlier.  Ironically, the "Wikinger-Zwillinge" both came from Naval Reserve Air Base Anacostia, Washington, D.C.

These aircraft are picture in various schemes designed to test visibility over water, the dark grays and greens being most effective over the Baltic and North Atlantic.  They were also tested in various all-up weight configurations on the catapults, proving to be almost too heavy for the catapults at their highest take-off weight.  In contrast, the German arresting gear was shown to be excellent, reliably stopping the rechristened Ju 187s in any configuration.  The one feature of the SB4U Viking that the Luftwaffe considered totally unacceptable was its total lack of folding wings.  Not realizing that the Vought had already solved the very same issue by that time, Junkers set about developing a wing folding mechanism for the Ju 187.  Unsurprisingly, the Junkers wing-fold devised for the navalized Ju 187 was fundamentally the same the one developed by Vought for the SB4U-4, folding back along the fuselage, leading edge pointing downwards.

The unit was jokingly called "The Flying Circus" because of the variety of schemes used on their aircraft, markings and camouflage changing with some regularity.  After yet another series of delays with the carrier Graf Zeppelin, much of the unit's aircraft and personnel were transferred to the Netherlands and operated alongside Erprobungsgruppe 167 (the trials unit for the Fi 167 carrier-based torpedo bomber).  Unfortunately, this change in fortunes and geography earned the unit another name, "the crew of the Flying Dutchman" after the mythical phantom ship.

Things to note about these profiles:

I sort of screwed up on the last profile, since I didn't include the Stammkennzeichen on the bottom of the wing, my previous German profiles having only had Verbandskennzeichen.  I can excuse this as the underside of the aircraft was recently repainted.  Since I had the opportunity to get it right on these three, I did.  The BuNos I used were originally SBC Helldivers that were transferred to France and halfway there when France surrendered, ending their lives on a hillside on Martinique.  The BuNos 1840 & 1841 did in fact come from NRAB Anacostia, while the other came from NRAB St. Louis, close to where I grew up.

I tried to vary the markings and schemes enough to give a variety, including the names Freya and Freyr on the "twins".  Different spinners can also give each aircraft its own character, so I used this to my advantage.

I hope you guys like the story and the profiles!

Cheers,

Logan

[Maverick]

Thanks for the explanation Logan.  My fave would be the 3rd of the bunch.

Regards,

John

[lauhof52]

Very realistic story and nice to read!  :) Top german vikings - as always.  But Logan...uh, just for my sake, is there any chance you finally get to midway...?

 :want:

regards
Lauhof

[jorel62]

WOW!!!!!!! :in-love:

[Logan Hartke]

Very realistic story and nice to read!  :) Top german vikings - as always.  But Logan...uh, just for my sake, is there any chance you finally get to midway...?

 :want:

Thanks, lauhof!  I'll definitely get there, sooner than later as long as I don't take another 18 month sabbatical!  I have at least 3 different Midway schemes planned, though I may do more than that.  Right now, though, I'm trying to clear out a backlog of profiles from the pre-1942 period that I was planning on doing.  I'm heading south of the border for my next couple of profiles I think, though.

Cheers,

Logan

[lauhof52]

Thanks Logan. Very nice to read this info!  :)

[Logan Hartke]

Yeah, work's in the way at the moment.  I haven't cracked open Photoshop all week, yet.

Thanks,

Logan

[BadersBusCompany]

Awsome Wikings Logan...............superb!

[Logan Hartke]

So, what have I been working on?  Work, unfortunately.  I work for a tax software company and now that the year is over, everyone is using our software at the same time, so I don't have a lot of free time.  I WAS able to get some work done this weekend, however.

I have still been researching some Viking schemes, but I also found some great P-61 sources, so I'll likely try to finish that up sometime, but I've also started a brand new project.  The line art has been provided by my father.  He does line art of What If aircraft and variants on paper, so I scanned his last one in and will be taking some time to do the lighting and shading of it.  It will take some time because it has struts and wires and spats (a first for me), but I think it will look pretty good in the end.

Cheers,

Logan