hmmm............hey gang ! I think Tony has lots of goodies in store for us !
he probably now wishes he hadn't written that l

I now wish I hadn't written that! Actually, it is mostly copies of cutaways that were also photographed in larger format, I just used 35mm as a reference. The ones that are the only images of artwork that is long gone are of small stuff like carburetors (that must be the US spelling, but it's what Google came up with), radiators and oil pumps, small items that were fun to do and let me learn how to paint without the stress of practicing on a large, important cutaway.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE IN CUTAWAYLAND, AND BEYOND!

Merry Christmas to all

and Matra 630 cutaway by Robert Roux



Ibsen

There's something beyond "Cutawayland"? I thought one simply fell off the face of the Earth!

My thought ! I actually scraped my leg on the edge when I thought I would wander out of cutawayland for a short break !!!

I have seen a "filled in" colour Robert Roux cutaway. that was a Matra V12 engine, but this looks like
it may be an original Robert Roux colour cutaway.
Speaking of Robert Roux, fellow TNF-er Oscar Valdetaro sent me a Christmas cutaway gift.
So for all of us to enjoy.............
Robert Roux' Jaguar XJ120C

Ah well, I was paraphrasing Buzz Lightyear - "To infinity and beyond!" As we know, there is no beyond, but it survives in legend. Marc's slight graze is no more than stigmata, and a session of stitching parts of scans seamlessly will cure it completely!

Junkers Jumo 211... Yours are a little better, Tony !
Merry Christmas again !

Very interesting dovatf, thanks for the link!

Yamaha OX99-11 cutaway by unknown artist

Japanese super sports car, two places, tandem seating arrangement, carbon fiber chassis and OX99 engine as the F1 car.



Ibsen

Bump

How could this slip to the second page?

Pat

Pat, I'm surprised macaron and ibsenop have managed to keep posting so energetically, even in Cutawayland the elves need a kip!

Now this is a puzzle - a second McLaren M26 - I can't remember doing it, and why would I do two? I will have to dig out my work diaries and check, but what interests me is that compared with the first one, painted on line-board, this is obviously painted on watercolour board, and looks completely different, style-wise. I must have learned a lot in the two years between them, it could almost have been done by someone else! Perhaps it is a rare Toine Mateus...

A bit of old school to pass the time.

http://img23.imageshack.us/i/millar1958vanwall.jpg/

Al

All,
Hope you had a great Christmas. I have not sent out much in online greetings as there seems to be an abundance to deal with, so will gift you with a few more of the recent scans as your holiday present from me.
This first (of the group) is a Vic Berris illustration that I have from Car and Driver, December, 1963. This is the Climax-engined Cooper Formula 1 ... for your dining and dancing pleasure.
Tom West

Here is another Car and Driver-published illustration from August, 1961. In a review of Formula Juniors, Gordon Bruce was included with the Bourgeault.
Tom West

Another Gordon Bruce illustration from Sports Car Graphic, March, 1963. This one is the 1963 Brabham Formula 1 effort.
Tom West

Another Car & Driver centerspread illustration from Gordon Bruce, September, 1962 issue. This is the 1962 BRM Formula 1.
Tom West

Sports Car Graphic and another English Formula car illustration from Gordon Bruce. The BRP effort as shown in October of 1963.
Tom West

This time we have a 1961 Ferrari sharknose with the 120°V6, out of Car & Driver from July, 1961.
Tom West

For something a little different, we have the Merlyn 1100 Sport from Gordon Bruce, out of the November, 1962 issue.
Tom West

Another Gordon Bruce illustration from 1964, the Attila-Ford.
Tom West

Going to close it off with a couple of my own early pieces, both of these done for Dodge News Bureau out of Los Angeles. They were the guys who were doing all the magazine promotional work with the Dodge runners of the time.
The first is one of the original Keith Black team cars of Nelson Carter. The Super Chief went through a few variations, and I got to know Nelson pretty well over the years. This was actually the smallest cutaway I ever did. What I was thinking in trying this, I can't tell you as it was almost blinding trying to do it that small. Fortunately, I did not have the complex style that was coming out of the English artists of the day ... the cars were just massively simpler.



Might as well kick in the second here ...
This is another Dodge News Bureau project of the Roger Lindamood Charger, the Color Me Gone car out of Warren, Michigan. I ended up living not far from where Lindamood was stationed a few years later. This was an attempt to use the NASCAR Daytona nose on a funny car, but was done with body filler and not from a fresh nose shell, so the body was almost too heavy to lift ... not many were built like that, and they really didn't want to show how primitive it really was done. The drawing thus did not get to reflect exactly what was happening under that nose. The illustration was a little larger than the Super Chief, but not much. Not one of my favorites, I have to say.



Tom West

I meant to reply to this days ago Al, sorry! You have certainly improved the illustration, but the red is too blue, it was a very orangy red! With the basic software that I have, if I reduce the blue or increase some other colour the whole illustration changes - when I had Photoshop I could just tickle the areas that I wanted. Thanks for the effort.

Thanks for another fine bunch of illustrations Tom.

As to the size of the original artwork, there is a natural size that suits the style of illustration, the dexterity and eyesight of the illustrator and the subject matter. Both Jim and I experimented with half-size (20"x15" approx) board, but the disadvantages outweigh the advantages in my opinion, and Jim only tried it once, I recall.

I'm having big problems with British Telecom at the moment, it's taking about 15 minutes for a page to download completey, so I'm losing the will to post. Makes a change, eh?

Thanks for another fine bunch of illustrations Tom.

As to the size of the original artwork, there is a natural size that suits the style of illustration, the dexterity and eyesight of the illustrator and the subject matter. Both Jim and I experimented with half-size (20"x15" approx) board, but the disadvantages outweigh the advantages in my opinion, and Jim only tried it once, I recall.

I'm having big problems with British Telecom at the moment, it's taking about 15 minutes for a page to download completey, so I'm losing the will to post. Makes a change, eh?



Tony,
I know that you guys tended to be around 40-inch long or so, where my largest ended up something like 30-35 or so, although that Super Chief was probably about 15 originally Even with the much simpler illustration it was a handful to hold the detail, and I was trying a few things back at that time; sort of hunting for an identity without really having a clue what I should have been doing. I would run into a few of these things from the English illustrators in the sports car mags, but most of the stuff I was dealing with was out of Car Craft originally. And the old Rex Burnett standard out of the early days of Hot Rod (the first one was published there the month I was born, I believe) was really simple stuff. I have a copy of his last drawing out of the 80s, and it was significantly better than the early material, but still way behind what you guys were creating.
Still grateful for the inspiration ... but I do wish you guys had inspired me to do something that actually had a chance of making a bit of money; only thing I would really change ...
Thanks, anyway.
Tom West

And, my wireless setup here is working plenty fast, uploads and all are sailing right along. Just thought I would let you know how the colonies seem to be doing, at least in that aspect. Not quite sure about most of the rest of late.

20"x30" for me Tom, a standard board size. Next size up is/was 30"x40", I used to hold some in reserve, always thinking perhaps, one of these days... but it was nice to know that if I needed to, I could go up an inch or two to include some wing extension that unexpectedly reared its head.



I agree about the money, I did OK for some considerable time, but things change.

My broadband trouble is local, so local that it only affects me! My phone line keeps dying too...

Thanks Al, a terrific drawing of a great car, one of many that I would have liked to have done!

Tony
Thanks for the feedback. Figured I'd give it one last shot then go off in search of a life. I used the attached photo as a reference. I find that when one doesn't know what one is doing every attempt is an adventure, every result unexpected, possibly pleasurable and never reproducible.

http://img6.imageshack.us/i/matthewsm26composite1.jpg/

Al

Lotus 70 F5000 by Bill Bennett
Scans Roger Lund

Tom I scanned and posted that when we were heavy on Sharknoses here, but the C&D issue was with a red background.
Did you filter that out ?

I keep wondering how come your black comes out so much more solid than in my scans.

P.S. you saved me digging up and scanning a lot of SCGs, busy you've been !!
Thanks for the great posts.

My first attempt with ImageShack : I didn't succeed yet with the thumbnail system... I try it since the Jumo 211 picture I posted from another website disappeared...

2007 Porsche Turbo

2002 Chevy Indy

Marc,
I was figuring that you seem to be about as knowledgeable as anyone I have seen on this stuff, but was wondering if you had recognized that all of those color backgrounds were removed ... some a bit more cleanly than others. All of those were just cleaned out by deleting the areas. I try to do a Magic Wand selection, but that is really messy with the outlines so I usually try to clean that up by either deleting to black on the lines or deleting to white on the surround.
As to the lines, on one of those two-piece deals that has to be put together, then never match up well. I almost always do a lighten with increased contrast to help clean out all the stains and discoloration on each part. Rotate them and match something as a vertical and then piece the sections against that line. I will then go back to the contrast and lighten on one side and try to get them a touch closer before I flatten the whole thing.
Once they are put together, I go back and use a curves adjust to sort of S-curve it to darken the darks and lighten the lights, but by darkening the midrange a little more to strengthen the lines.
That would be when the close stuff on the outline is pulled out of the background, and any adjustments are made. Many of these are pretty faded, so I will do a Highlights adjust on the color to eliminate the yellow and the red, which usually gets rid of most of the discoloration.
They are then moved from RGB to greyscale mode ...
Think that about sums it up, other than trying to fill in the gaps and holes from the folds, staples, and whatever else they have been subjected to in the binding and handling over 50 or so years.
I usually pull them up to give a 300dpi original at about 17-inches, so they are almost printable if you don't get too picky. I pull them down to 2000 x whatever to post here, so they are usually a little under half the dimensional size that I have scanned.
Trying to match up those line shade areas when they are really butchered are probably the toughest, and I haven't been trying to make them perfect, just enough that you get a decent idea of what was there.
Hope is it working for you. I have done something like 70 of these things so I can just put a few out at a time, but it is taking a while to connect them, as you will know.
Hope this helps with the process.
Damn, it doesn't seem this complicated when I am doing these things ...
Tom West

Ford Escort 1986 cutaway by Studio Collins



and Ford Escort 1975 cutaway by Terry Collins



Ibsen

Citroen SM, the one with the Maserati V6, probably by the house publicity department

although it could even be a G.Betti

Citroen XM by E.T.A.I.

I'm fairly certain that the SM is a Betti, Marc, due to the trademark cutting of the glass. As I've said before, I'm not sure why they felt the need to cut a transparent material, but they were/are the only illustrators to do it as far as I know. Now - G or B...? G I think.

I studied a lot of Bettis before choosing Giulio, I am glad your thoughts go the same direction Tony.

Here is a little beauty ! an MG TC.
Tony, you'll be able to tell us if Jim Allington ever owned one, because for the life of me I couldn't imagine how anyone
could get this much detail into a cutaway without having the actual object sitting in the backyard...or forecourt.


I had my work cut out as there was a centimeter missing between the scans, now I am too knackered to try and
solid up and blacken the lines as per Tom's tutorial above
Maybe Tom will lift it out and give it a going over !

This is another late drawing Marc, by which I mean - done after I left. The copyright symbol is a giveaway. He never had a TC as far as I know, although at one stage he had a small collection. You don't have to own one to draw it, otherwise I'd have a huge garage!

When I first met him he had rebuilt an MG TF, originally a LH drive car owned by a US Airforce member who had a very bad accident in it, probably through briefly forgetting which side of the road to drive on. There is an airbase near Hitchin, Chicksands, which in the 50's, 60's and 70's was very big, home to a lot of Americans, and I think the TF's owner was based there. He rebuilt it as RH drive, but it had gone before I met him, so had his T35 Bugatti, but he had an MGA in French Blue, and a FIAT Topolino. The MGA was the first 'modern' sportscar I ever had a ride in!

Marc,
you and Tony are right. The Citroen SM cutaway is by Giulio Betti.



Ibsen

Off topic: I almost had a huge accident outside Chicksands in a LH drive Porsche 924. Trying to overtake in a LH drive car can be awkward at times although I was a bit mad in those days

On topic: I did see a drawing somewhere of the Early Warning Structure at Chicksands. A huge circle of antennae on top of the hill. Now gone and I think the place is being used as Council Offices.

We've (nearly) all been through that phase Alan! The road from Hitchin to Bedford is a bastard, even now that they have done quite a bit to 'improve' it, parts of the old road still exist, and I do have occasional flash-backs when I remember a particular incident or three from the old days! I have a client in Bedford, so I use the road every now and then, always a thrill to see the airship hangers at Cardington.


You used to be able to see the Early Warning Radar Display from miles away, I never saw it close up, but it was massive, and a huge landmark from Pegsdon Hills, Sharpenhoe Clappers or Barton Springs - unless you were down at the springs, of course, when you couldn't see much but grass and sky. And the springs. Chicksands is still in use, but I don't know the purpose.

Not a drawing therefor off topic:

Voila! Chickensand radar array.

Thanks for the confirmation Ibsen, now I can file it in the Betti file rather than just stick it into the A.N.Other file

Wow! That was quick DM! Just look how stunted the trees are around it - spooky!

A big seasonal thank you to Marc for getting us back on topic!

Yes, yes, yes

For those who don't know what we are on about, the hangers were built in the 20's for Airships, including R101.

One is in good condition and is used as a Warner Bros film set. The other is in a bit of a state and is up for sale. Take That used it to set up their massive stage for rehearsals before the last tour. It was on TV a couple of days ago. My kids were watching Gary Barlow etc, but I was looking at the old building. Looking a bit rough and full of holes. A bit like a cutaway really

Did anything come of this Marc? I'm guessing no, or we would have heard about it.