STAFF PICK :: RCAF Spitfire

[Olie]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post so I thought I'd share a painting of a RCAF Spitfire I did in Photoshop, it's of a local gentleman who flew during WW2 for the RCAF and this was his and his squadron's first victory.

The original is 36 x 22 inches done entirely in photoshop using a mouse and a Wacom Tablet and over a 1000 layers, (it got confusing at times as I'm lazy when naming layers).

I hope you like it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v610/Olie/spitfire3.jpg

[Edited on 1/25/2006 by kiwicolin]

[weeja]

wow man! This is spectacular! I know what you mean about naming layers too heh. Great work! :cheers

[swinnie11]

Simply stunning work, as an ex Royal Air Force person i find pictures like this fantastic, well done and keep posting great work

Spence:cheers

P.S Naming layers! what's that then? lol

[cfire]

Great job. Welcome to the Cafe. :)

[dima_isit]

Welcome to the Cafe,

Very nice work there. Realistic.

Suggestions: Work little on sky - sky are never one colour;
Clouds make them bit more blury - clouds dont have sharp definition in the sky;
Plane, great work there - but add some sort of movement indication, maybe little movement blur or some sort of air-dinamics, showing that plane is moving not freezed;
Picture mood - dont know about you but i think that background needs to be darker to bring up all that combat atmosphere. at the moment it looks like an air show above washington lol. if it darker it would set very strong mood for combat and would make us feel like - WOW this is crazy. but you know what i mean.

Apart from that very nice work, keep it up.

ps: iam not trying to be hard on u, instead trying to motivate you.

[kiwicolin]

Thats is an amazing piece. I have always loved ww2 planes. Nice job on the spitfire and the ME109, I would love to see a larger version

[Edited on 1/25/2006 by kiwicolin]

[smugBoy]

Very nice work! Wacoms are the best thing to happen to artists since cheap wine and womanizing. Love to see more.

[swinnie11]

It would be great to see it in more detail if you have a link to a larger version.

P.S i think the clouds look fine, but i agree with the sky being all one colour, a little blue to white gradient would look great, i have seen many paintins of spitfire scenes and this quite easily ranks up there with them, well done again

Spencer:cheers

[Edited on 25/1/2006 by swinnie11]

[Olie]

Here is a detail of the Spitfire itself.

Details (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v610/Olie/spitfire_detail2.jpg)

Edit: Image changed to link to avoid huge load times.

[Edited on 1/25/2006 by mkeefe]

[w@rtistic]

i love it nice details

[swinnie11]

excellent, even more impressive now i have seen the detail, bravo

Spencer:notworthy

[kiwicolin]

Wow! Thats awesome
I just have to give that one a staff pick!!! Congrats

[swinnie11]

Awesome, First post in the cafe and it gets a staff pick, could that be a record??

Fantastic and well deserved, keep it up

Spencer:cheers

P.S are you an artist by trade or do you do it just for fun? if you do it for fun maybe you should change jobs

[Olie]

Thanks for the staff pick.

To swinnie11, yes I do this for a living, I'm a Graphic Desiger and Illustrator, more Designer than Illustrator, but I get to play with photoshop pretty much everyday.

Aviation art is something I'm really interested in, just getting started though, I've also recently completed a RCAF Handley Page Halifax Bomber which I donated to an organization that is seeking to locate and recover a Halifax Bomber (LW170) from the ocean floor off the coast of Scotland (5000 feet of water). That one has gone to print just this month and is signed by 11 crew members who flew on the exact Halifax depicted in the painting at various times over the course of the war.

Again thanks for picking the Spitfire as a Staff Pick.

[deewebgirl]

wow that is awsome, just checked out the details of the spitfire, sooo cool:cool:

[Edited on 1/25/2006 by deewebgirl]

[swinnie11]

If you want to look at a few pictures of the battle of britain memorial flight the adress is http://www.bbmf.co.uk they have some picture of a spitfire that is still flying today, i used to be based at the RAF Base that they are stationed at, they fly over my house all the time, what an amazing site and the noise is tremendous.

Anyway, take a look, there are some nice pictures if you are interested in that sort of thing

Spencer:cheers

[Edited on 26/1/2006 by swinnie11]

[Edited on 26/1/2006 by swinnie11]

[deewebgirl]

chk'd it out.. possibly my father- in- law who recently passed away was part of the Canadian crew for the Lancaster, i will verify further into it. He use to talk about, unfortunately I never really got a chance to know him long enough, to hear, all the great stories. tku both!!

[jucati]

Very nice. Reminds me of the pictures on the boxes for plastic models I did as a kid. Love it!

[Doug Banks]

Absolutely stunning, beautiful work! Seeing that quality of work is very inspiring. Well done :)

[Andy]

wowsers! excellent work !

[fotodog]

1000 layers???

Dude, that's outta this world.

Nice work.
I really like it!
I too would like to see the larger version.

[Olie]

I'm a pack rat for layers, my Halifax Bomber painting which I just completed has over twice that many, I should be a lot smarter with my layers but I never keep track of them and the next thing you know I have a 4 Gig file that takes 5-10 minutes (or something like that) everytime I want to save.

I posted a larger version of the Spitfire about 13 post earlier if you you wanted to take a look.

[Switch]

nice work!!!!

:)

[PNeal]

How did I miss this?
Stunning work!

I've always had a love of WWII aircraft.
Time for you to get a job at Jane's. (The reference manuals if someone didn't know what Jane's was.)

[actionfx]

Fantastic!

[arieck]

:o

[koha_onan]

Thx for showing me what can be done with photoshop:notworthy

[koha_onan]

Thx for showing me what we can do so far with photoshop.:notworthy:notworthy:notworthy

[DeVV]

Amazing job

first post and already a staff pick, i have a feeling we will be seeing your name around the cafe ALOT more often

congrats!

[ryuneo]

Superb work, the detail is just mind blowing! Great work, look forward to seeing more. :)

[Marthig]

Congratulations on being selected for the Staff Pick greatly deserved.
Watched the large image and stayed gaping at it and marveling at all the greatly done details.

As to the clouds not being that neat I have to disagree I flew once on an Islander (a 7 passengers small plane) and we flew through those type of clouds and they looked just like the ones you painted. I suppose their being blurry or not would depend on the altitude at which you look. It was a wonderful experience.

Congratulations Olie (ahh and welcome to the forum ;) )

[Edited on 2/6/2006 by Marthig]

[uk2usadaz]

Wow great details, fantastic job. :notworthy

[jhoo]

excellent job
looks like a screenshot from a video game

my only complaints are; the propeller doesnt look like its rotating, it looks more like a gaussian blur has been applied to it, maybe some subtle swoosh lines would help give the sense of spinning
and there are no exhaust marks on the side of the plane

other than those two minor things, its great work, you did a great job with the other details
the larger image really shows the ammount of work put into it
i wish i had the patience to do something like that

[ranjit_nepal]

Awsome!!!

[Mussarela]

Thats great Olie!!!
:cheers