Profiles

[Mossie]

I've been slavering over the profiles posted by several members, Iranian F-14A & Tornado among others.  Of course, I've got to mention Sentinels gorgeous P.1216 & F-8 renderings.

Since I've finally got myself a home computer I fancy doing a few myself, but I've no idea how to do it.  How do you go about it?  What software do you use?  How long does it generally take?

Cheers!

Simon.

[Gary F]

Mossie,

 While there are certainly more qualified to advise you on profiles, here's how I've done a few.  I've scanned in decal placement guides from a given kit.  Then using Paint program cleaned up the image by whiting out anything but the shape lines and panel lines and then save it.  Then pull up the image again and save under a name, and then color in your scheme.  Basic and probably not the easiest way but do-able.
 Hopefully some of the others you mentioned will offer up some better ideas and tips on doing these, as I'd like to improve my methods, too.

Good luck,
Gary F

[rallymodeller]

Although you can get some pretty decent results with a program like MS Paint, to do the more elaborate profiles you will need Photoshop or Illustrator.

Good blank profiles can be found at places like www.airwar.ru. These are very large sacale (sometimes larger than 1/24!) and to get a really good profile size is the key. Shrinking the profile down to get it to fit the screen can hide a lot of sins.

Colours are tricky on an RGB monitor; a site like Don Color is good to take colour samples from.

I have to confess that I learned a lot of this sort of thing in college -- I'm trained as a graphic designer. So use of Photoshop (not always the most intuitive program but easier than Illustrator) is something I have no problem with. Basically th ething to do is grab a side-view and start messing around with it -- you might be surprised at the results you get!

[John Howling Mouse]

Good blank profiles can be found at places like www.airwar.ru.

First of all, thanks for the Russian website: that is completely nuts in a great way.

Second, do you know if there are many functional differences b/w Corel PhotoPaint and Photoshop?

[rallymodeller]

First of all, thanks for the Russian website: that is completely nuts in a great way.

Second, do you know if there are many functional differences b/w Corel PhotoPaint and Photoshop?

First of all, you're welcome. They add new stuff once in a while, and there are some glaring omissions (no F-16?!) but otherwise they're really complete.

And second, I can't honestly say. Corel does some good products, but I learned on PS so I'll stay with it. Just use the program you're most comfortable with.

[Mossie]

Cheers guys, that's a great help!  I'll scan in some I've got (I'm not on the net yet with my home computer so I'll use those web profiles another time, cheers Gary) & I'll have a mess about tonight hopefully.  I don't have PhotoShop (at least I don't think so, I keep finding new applications though!) so I'll use whatever I've got for now.

Simon.

[Jennings]

I'm probably pretty unusual, but I do them in Adobe Illustrator.  Since I do decal artwork and illustration, it makes things much easier.  Sources for side view drawings are numerous, and sometimes you simply have to start from scratch, using known dimensions, photos, etc.  That makes it very easy to use a basic airplane and add many different kinds of camo and/or markings to it.

Of course, it also took me years to learn how to do it with anything approaching a degree of competence.  Vector based drawing programs (Illustrator, Corel, etc) are somewhat intimidating to the uninitiated.

J

[Nigel Bunker]

As with modelling, the more you do the better you'll become at it. When I do them, I use Corel Photopaint. It's not the best and not the worst , but I'm comfortable with it.

[Sentinel Chicken]

I posted this in response to a similar question several weeks ago but I think it goes as well for Mossie's question as well:

Thanks for the compliments- I use Adobe Illustrator 10 for my illustrations- for my illustrations, I typically start from scratch with a side profile photograph or drawing and then use photographs from the internet, books, etc. to add the smaller details. I have one of those graphics pads where you use a stylus just like a pen (for those curious- I have a Wacom Graphire4).
...

I don't necessarily think it's a matter of having artistic capabilities, but it can help, but there are many other ways around it. One way is via the use of Photoshop. Tom Cooper on the ACIG forum gives a nice little tutorial on how he uses Photoshop to create his profiles:

http://www.acig.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=399

[PolluxDeltaSeven]

Personally I use Photoshop 5. I know, it's an old variant but its enough for what I do. Moreover, their is less bug in my computer with PS 5 than with Photoshop CS... I use this new variant (CS) only for some little things...

I start with drawing profiles a year ago and I still have a lot of things to learn...



About the way to draw, I will use an example to show you:


I chose this one because it was not the most difficult to do but the result is good enough. It's the more "academic" profile in my collection

-1) you draw (or copy) the lines of your plane on a transparency layer.
This layer with the lines of your profile will ALWAYS be on the top of the layer pile.

-2) you creat a second layer and you put it under the first layer. On this second layer, you apply the colors. In this example, the blue, the grey and the sand.
Some prefer having one layer for each colors, but I don't. I prefer when there are less layer as possible.

-3) Above the second layer, you creat another layer and you draw the shadows of your plane, under the plane, its wings and tails, the antennas on the top of the plane etc etc...
You do the same thing with the lights. On this example, we can see the lights on the tail's antennas, on the canopy etc...

-4) On different layers, you put all the markings: roundels, IIAF and arabic code, the escape triangle under the canopy etc etc... For this plane, I find the Hornet's markings on Google. With "Hornet decals", "F/A-18 markings" or something like that, don't remember.
You can also scan the real decals of a model if you have one.

-5) for the canopy and the engine exhaust, it is quite particular. In fact it is often the last thing I draw. I draw them just like it was a new drawing.

For this canopy for example, while the plane was quite finish, I spend a lot of time drawing the whole thing with the same 4 steps as previous: lines of the seat and board, colors of the seat, a layer for the color of the canopy placed above the seat (it was dificult to find a good light transparency green/grey color). For the light of the canopy, I used the "light layer" I used for the plane itself, but sometimes I have a layer only for the light on the canopy.

For the engine exhaust, I often drew them with the rest of the plane, just adding a grey or silver color to my color layer But this time it was special because the engines of this plane are French M88-3 engines, not the F404 of the US planes...
But it is a special case.


Of course, you will find by yourself other little stuffs. For example, you could add ABOVE your layer with the lines a new layer that surround the whole thing with white color. Like that, you can color and draw the shadows without worring about not exceed the limits of the lines (I don't know if it is clear enough. I'm not very good in English when I try to explain something technical).



I hope it could help you to see the steps of the creation of a profile. Hope it helps you


What can I add to that? Well, the other guys are right: do it as big as possible: the details will be better and it will be easier for the marking step.
And well, train train train and train again!! My first profiles weren't brilliant at all. This one is not exceptionnal, I did others better, but I love it for its simplicity.


If you have Photoshop, send me your email adress by PM and I'll send you a Photoshop file with one of my drawing. You will see by yourself how I use the layers...

[Son of Damian]

I have found several sites around the web that show you what PolluxDeltaSeven is talking about when it comes to layering. Heres another one and another. I remember seeing one over at the Air War Forum where someone demonstrated how they made a Romanian PZL 11, but back last Nov-Dec they got ride of the art section cuz I think people were stealling.

I have made a few profiles my self all of either German A7V tanks or the never even built Oberschliesen Assault tank. They were made in MS paint on a Gateway 2000 PC (our first family PC from around 1994) that I kept in my room. But it crapped out on me back in April and I wasn't able to get them off before then. I have planned to take out the hard drives and make them slave drives on the computer that I curretnly use, but I'm not entirely sure that old hard drives will be capable of doing this.  

A major problem I encountred was judging distance, as I wasn't really sure how to translate distance into paint and paint doesn't have anything that can help in this regard. Though all considered I feel that I did a pretty good job.

Next semester I'm going to take some digital graphics and animation classes at TCC (Tarrant County College) and maybe in the future some more advanced classes at the Dallas Art Insitute. Hopefully after I take some classes my parents will be more inclinded to get me a high end computer that I can use for gaming and DG&A, preferably from Alienware.  

[PolluxDeltaSeven]

Thanks for the word Son of Damian, that's "Layer" and not "Tracing". I'm going to change my post right now.

A major problem I encountred was judging distance, as I wasn't really sure how to translate distance into paint and paint doesn't have anything that can help in this regard. Though all considered I feel that I did a pretty good job.

On Photoshop, there is a fonction to have the distance between two points. Well, it just give you the number of pixel/cm/inch, whatever, you just have to do some calculation to convert it.
That's really usefull, particulary when you want to had some weapons for example.

Next semester I'm going to take some digital graphics and animation classes at TCC (Tarrant County College) and maybe in the future some more advanced classes at the Dallas Art Insitute. Hopefully after I take some classes my parents will be more inclinded to get me a high end computer that I can use for gaming and DG&A, preferably from Alienware.

There are some digital graphics classes in my University too. Sadly, its only for this semester at an hour when I have another classe... So bad they don't keep with this classe next semester!  

[rallymodeller]

Specifically I use Photoshop 8, and somewhere (I have no idea where) I found a nifty little plugin for it that allows one to make a transparency layer out of an RGB drawing by simply clicking "Eliminate White" (it plugs into the Filters section, right above Digimark).  

[Mossie]

Cheers for the help guys!  I've had a little play over the weekend with some very basic profiles.  I scanned in a profile of the Rotodyne Z from Project Cancelled & had a play about, I've done seven or eight so far.

I've only got Paint, & I've found it's quite limited in what you can do.  Some of it's fiddly & theres only so much you can do.  I don't know how to match colours yet, so some of them are not quite right.  I'll post them when my home broadband connection gets up & running in a day or two, but they are absolutley nothing like Pollux's art of work!

If I start getting into this, I'll pick up something like Photoshop or Illustrator & see how I go!

Simon.