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The Cheetah profiles, done in 2007 are not standing up to the test of time ... I'm busy re-doing the textures & shading on the Cheetah D. Also tweaked the nose a touch.

Here's the different drawings ...



Cheers

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Brent Best

Awesome Boet!

You just go from strength to strength.

Well done! Awesome as always! Would love to see the end product.....

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UVSAAF Virtual Pilot: http://www.uvsaaf.fsworld.co.za/index.p ... ile/view/1
View my Blog here: http://www.fsworld.co.za/community/blog/Jakes/

Thanks Jakes, she's really starting to look more menacing now ...



Cheers

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Brent Best

Eish, boet. That is looking friggen awesome! I am working on a Mirage IIIBZ PSD right now. Will maybe start a thread on progress there. One question though - How big do you make your files in pixels? I keep mine at about 4000 PX in width.

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Gerard Griessel

Thanks gerard

Yeah, post your Mirage IIIBZ progress

For scaling & comparision purposes, I keep to the same size formula for my profiles, whereby 100 cm on the actual plane equals 500 pixels. So on the Cheetah D, this amounts to a profile width of 8090 pixels. On larger aircraft like the C-130 I used 100 cm equals only 250 pixels, also then ending up with a profile width of around 8000 pixels. So my first step is to get the actual aircraft dimensions, calculate my scale formula, & create a new psd with those dimensions @ 300dpi.

I find this size helps me with the overall detailing level, especialy on the tiny niggly bits, as its easier to draw bigger & then resize smaller ... also at this size I actually duplicate the aircraft stencils exactly using the text tool, so if it says "safety pin" on the aircraft, one can read "safety pin" on the drawing ... however, the psd file size hits 150mb+ quickly.


A 100% crop showing actual drawing size.

Cheers

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Brent Best

Then your accuracy level is way higher than mine! I think my system is going to sukkel a bit with a 150MB file Do you also draw your lines off of photos?

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Gerard Griessel

My system also started croaking under the large file sizes & then I started working in seperate sections. Having a psd file for each section, ie wings, vertical stab, fuselage, nose, cockpit, gear, then flattening the sections as I went along & then merging them all together when finished.

This though, made consistent shading & highlights tricky ... so I closed my eyes & bought a new pc

I also prefer to work off photo's. They do however, bring about perspective errors, so I use MANY photo's for reference. I find that photo's taken from much further away with a long lens actually work better for the general shape & panels, giving less perspective errors & are more accurate, then use close-up photo's to fill in the details. And one can never have too much reference photo's ....

Did I mention that I count rivets & screws ...

Cheers

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Brent Best

You guys are extremely talented!

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UVSAAF Virtual Pilot: http://www.uvsaaf.fsworld.co.za/index.p ... ile/view/1
View my Blog here: http://www.fsworld.co.za/community/blog/Jakes/

I don't have quite as much time for that I am sticking to 4000px for now with an entire aircraft, since I like shading and texturing on the whole thing (makes it simpler).

In terms of shading I am actually in two minds. I used to do my shading on seperate layers, but I find that burning on the base layer makes for more accurate shadows. But that's just me. It causes more work if you feel like making a second profile in a different paint scheme on the same PSD, but then again I believe each profile must be shaded on it's own, especially when you have gloss and matt finishes.

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Gerard Griessel

The dodge & burn tools do produce good results indeed .... if you find the secret for doing a gloss finnish .. let me know please

Cheers

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Brent Best

Funny you should say that. I had two projects going - the BZ and an RZ as well, and I'm going ahead with the RZ now instead of the BZ. The RZ will be in a gloss camo finish (RZ 838)), and I have been experimenting with new techniques to get a gloss finish out of it. This included merging the whole aircraft (looking matt), and doing some multiplying, shaped white gradients and some other techniques, which proved to work nicely. The tricky thing is you have to work with a completely white background, which means you can't place some outside reflections on the fuselage to make it look realistic, so you just have to work with the aircraft's own reflections. Will start a thread on the RZ project as soon as I have made some more progress.

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Gerard Griessel

High gloss shiny surfaces are a pain, I struggle & then I struggle some more .. that which gives a shiny surface its appearance, is the reflections of that around it, & like you say, making a profile drawing with a white background, .. doh !!

I'm keen to see your results with the RZ.

Have you been here ?
http://www.simmerspaintshop.com/

Cheers

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Brent Best

An update ...



Cheers

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Brent Best

Some nice pics of Mirage IIID2Z #849, before her coversion to the Cheetah that I am busy drawing. Cheetah D2 #849.


Source: The South African Air Force - The Poster Book


Source: The SADF Yearbook - 1986

Cheers

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Brent Best