as i will sell myself to anyone, i personly think of myself as the whore of the art world

I am sure that a lot of you in C'awayland have been into building models of some level. This discussion of technique and technology reminds me of what was seen there.
The whole thing started out with guys taking a block of wood, or whatever material, picking up information and making their own drawings and all of that.

This became fairly popular so guys started printing out the plans, and the original block and drawing guys looked down on them for "cheating."

Then, they started producing the kits with the block sort of precut and the plans included in a single package, and the Plan and block guys looked down on them for "cheating."

Then, the kits came with the precut wood and formers and molded plastic detail parts, and the block kit guys looked down on them for "cheating."

Then the first modelkits came out with molded parts and at least a shape that approximated the actual subject, and the precut kit guys looked down on them for "cheating."

Then the later super-detailed modelkits came out, and the early modelers looked down on that as "cheating."

Then the Snap Together kits were brought out and everyone looked down on them for "cheating."

Then, the diecast market hit and all the modelers looked down on that as "cheating," but started collecting them anyway because they could actually display things easily.

This is just the way this stuff goes ...
Tom West

I am sure that a lot of you in C'awayland have been into building models of some level. This discussion of technique and technology reminds me of what was seen there.
The whole thing started out with guys taking a block of wood, or whatever material, picking up information and making their own drawings and all of that.

This became fairly popular so guys started printing out the plans, and the original block and drawing guys looked down on them for "cheating."
.
.
.
This is just the way this stuff goes ...
Tom West

I'm not an illustrator, but, if you can't find a manual solution, to the extent that your project can't even get off the ground. Have you considered using one of the Autodesk programs? Only as a last resort you understand. If you were to trace one of your photo's in one of the view ports, eventually you could obtain geometry for all the views, it would be generated automatically. It would take a bit of tweaking. I have just quickly knocked up an example in Max 2011 for you based on your first photo. If you really have nothing to go on and did the job properly. You would end up with dimensions for everything.

This would only be useful as a last resort though. Below is a very, very rough example.






Edit: Another process by which you could derive some kind of geometry from just a couple of partial photographs, this example would also enable you to factor in the comparative height of the pilot that you mentioned previously.

http://www.evermotion.org/tutorials/show/7...-model-building

Only if you have exhausted the classical techniques first though.

Thanks for this, and thanks to all for suggestions and help. I'm going to try the classical techniques rather than digital as I don't really feel like spending the limited time I have to put toward this project on learning to use a new tool. I feel confident that the tried-and-true methods (aka analog) will give me good results. BTW, looking at the "modelled" images above, I can understand how some actual models created by this virtual method end up looking the way they do.

Thanks again,

Chris

I think you present a really good analogy there, Tom. Especially in using that particular example, derived from the 'model making' specialism, and the accompanying notion of the 'cheat'/'cheating' and 'looking down' upon a thing.

As my dad, a draughtsman, who then went on to adopt CAD, basically, in order to feed me and my sister, is prone to suggesting , even the process of drawing from life, is essentially one of 'copying', from reality.

As I said above, I still don't know, if it is even appropriate that there should be a hierarchy, a natural 'artistic' food chain of technique or medium as such.

But you sum it up well and with a real-world example, involving an actual process. If you are going to look down, you will occasionally be made to look up. That is the way of the world.

I am sure that a lot of you in C'awayland have been into building models of some level. This discussion of technique and technology reminds me of what was seen there.
|
This became fairly popular so guys started printing out the plans, and the original block and drawing guys looked down on them for "cheating."
|
Then, they started producing the kits with the block sort of precut and the plans included in a single package, and the Plan and block guys looked down on them for "cheating."

Tom West

I do believe my cutaway folder may now be empty!

Gosh I'm sorry to hear that as I continue to enjoy the contents of said folder.
Thanks for sharing it with us.
Joe

It is true, it genuinely is. I shall continue to enjoy the thread though. I happen to know that Tom has some particularly tasty stuff lined up, I anticipate with great excitement the Race Car Engineer material! Ibsen will continue to pluck colourful gems from the ether as it were and Marc will pull out the rarest print variation known to man. And every now and then Roger will come up with something that no one even knew existed, to the extent that it typically results in the introduction of a completely new manufacturer/marque to the list.

I'll keep 'me' eye out for new material though!

I came across this on a spares site
Ford 105E.

Roger Lund

I came across this on a spares site
Ford 105E.

Reliant Sabra
This is from Autosport, duly recognised for copyright etc.

Lenham healey
This is in this month’s Classic Cars, duly recognised

All copyrights recognised
Roger Lund

Perhaps there is a parallel in the attitude of classical musicians to the world of rock 'n' roll! Some years ago George Martin recorded 'proper' musicians playing Beatles numbers - when David Williams tried to play one of George Harrisons solos he was completely flummoxed, just couldn't get it, so George H was asked to help. His response was that it was simple, just re-tune the guitar like so... There was once a series of programmes featuring Stephane Grappelli and Yehudi Menuhin, YM enthusiastically fiddling gipsy-influenced jazz. Embarrassing. Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias, anyone? I'm not a Willie Nelson fan but please! It's different, it's not better.

Most modern art leaves me cold, not because it is 'difficult', 'intellectual' or 'not what I like', but because mostly it is pretentious rubbish, part of a scam to make a lot of money by flogging the Emporor's Clothes to death. Artists, dealers and critics work hand-in-hand to milk the easily-impressed wealthy who wish, in turn, to impress. How many times do you hear that stock phrase from art critics - "I think what the artist is trying to say...". Well, try a bit harder, chum. David Hockney is one of the few current artists that I really like, his approach is invigorating, the finished work captivating and, for me, moving. Lucien Freud is more than competent, and has produced some terrific work - but he's a one-trick poney.

The point is that there are many illustrators who are better at drawing and painting than many 'artists', and who are not concerened that their work is commissioned for commercial purposes. Quite how that is different from a crude, multi-million pound/dollar sculpture commissioned by a large bank to erect on their fore-court I cannot see. I appreciate that drawing and painting skills do not have much bearing on what is art, and art, or Art, has moved on from a mix of skill and imagination to more pure intellectualising, but it doesn't prevent a lot of it being grim.

I have some sympathy with the view that grinding your own pigments may have little to do with the intended profesional career path, but surely it doesn't hurt to know, it doesn't waste years of your life, and if similar groundwork is left out of other courses there is an outcry. Like the measuring-point perspective, you'll probably never use it, but it doesn't hurt, in fact it can help, to have learned it.

I want to paint, not because I want to be known as, or think of myself as, a Fine Artist - I just want to paint, probably landscapes more than anything, because if you have an artistic, creative temperament that is not given some freedom, I don't think you can ever be truly happy. Well, happy is probably not the right word, but happier than otherwise. To my mind true artists appreciate artistic endevour in every walk of life, not just their own narrow field.

It's only proper art if you wear a smock and beret while making it.

I admit, but I do get a little tired of other people setting out the exact parameters for an art, neatly excluding everything bar their own discipline. I was thinking of deleting the post, but I can't now...

Quite! So you will embrace the CAD aesthetic from now on then, Tony?

;)

I have never said that Illustration is art, and CAD is another form of illustration - however, I still have preferences, and aesthetic judgement. I have a CAD engineering drawing of the Ferrari F2000 gearbox, and it is fascinating. I also have many drawings done by engineers who used pencils on film. I know which ones I prefer to look at. Fine Artists do not have a monopoly in appreciation of line quality.

Two Schneider Trophy winners.
Top 1928 Supermarine S-5 by S.W. Clatworthy

Bottom 1931 Supermarine S6B by G. H. Davis

Anybody know of the credited person ( David Kimble) - yesIi know he was the fugitive....

What is surprising is that a real artist has his name on the drawing and ( to my unskilled eye) it looks as if a person drew it.


Anybody know of the credited person ( David Kimble)

I think it just comes down to the insecurity or ego of the particular individual, and whether or not they wish to suggest or perpetuate their specialism above all others.

I agree, preference does thankfully cut through any notion of there being a hierarchy. But then (you probably know what I am going to say now) we end up back at that old cliche 'I don't know about art, but I know what I like'.

Two Schneider Trophy winners.
Top 1928 Supermarine S-5 by S.W. Clatworthy

Bottom 1931 Supermarine S6B by G. H. Davis

I agree, preference does thankfully cut through any notion of there being a hierarchy. But then (you probably know what I am going to say now) we end up back at that old cliche 'I don't know about art, but I know what I like'.

I wear very little else - day or night. Oh, plus the Wellingtons. Thanks to Chris 10kDa for at least one response to my rant. OTT, I admit, but I do get a little tired of other people setting out the exact parameters for an art, neatly excluding everything bar their own discipline. I was thinking of deleting the post, but I can't now...

Interestingly I went through a similar thing here at Aardman. I now do predominantly computer animation but did start my career doing traditional drawn and model animation. When I joined Aardman 11 years ago there were about 5 of us in the CGI department and it was very much a traditional crafty, hand made place with hardly a computer in sight. Some people didn't think we would fit in, some were worried we'd take their jobs. It fell to us to show that done the right way you could make computer animation with all the warmth and charm of plasticine. Also we showed that it was just another tool - some jobs are better done one way and some are better done the other.

Mostly I find we need to rough things up a bit. Computers are great at building perfect, symmetrical models but for a character to have warmth and charm you need to build in some imperfections - add some lumps and bumps, get rid of the symmetry, make one eye a tad bigger than the other perhaps. You're basically building in the little imperfections that would happen if it were made by hand rather than by a computer. Often I'll build a model directly over a thumbnail drawing - that way you get all the quirkiness of the sketch in the model. When it comes to the animation again it's important not to let the computer do too much - otherwise you get that floaty cg look. We basically apply all the same rules to cg as we do to model animation.

you need to build in some imperfections - add some lumps and bumps, get rid of the symmetry,

That's about 3x life-size, and looks like I wanted my work to look, all those years ago when my first attempt at colour was dismissed as 'just a photograph!' Trouble is, unless it is enlarged, rather than reduced, it looses this effect...

Very interseting, smarj, although you are too kind re my work. I am not using Google here, so please bare with me on accuracy, but was it not "Chicken Run" that was completely computer-generated, and was it not deemed that it did not have the 'soul' of previous, Plasticene films? I hear what you say about programming in the looseness and roughness of hand-made images, and with regard to engineering drawings, I assume it would be possible to incorporate a 'hand-drawn' feel to the software. However, no drawing office manager would be interested...

I have recently been cleaning up digitized Penske trannies for a possible project, and this has meant looking at some areas in large magnifications. Quite interesting, as it no longer looks like my work at all, although I can remember doing it. I'll have a go at posting a section - you will see (I hope) that the style looks much more 'painterly' than at the usual scale, so it might possibly be more acceptable to some...

That's about 3x life-size, and looks like I wanted my work to look, all those years ago when my first attempt at colour was dismissed as 'just a photograph!' Trouble is, unless it is enlarged, rather than reduced, it looses this effect...