Midway Wilcats

[kevjon]

The 2D gallery has been a bit quite lately so I thought I would post my first attempt at digital painting which I've just completed. The work was done with Painter IX and a Wacom Tablet.
Image shows a flight of F4F-4 Wilcats from USS Yorktown (VF-3) Led by Lt Cdr Thach peeling off to engage enemy fighters during the Battle of Midway (June 1942).

Had a lot of fun doing this image and learned a lot in the process which will help me on the next one !

[kiwi123]

Nice one ! It reminds me very much of the Bergese comic books (Buck Danny and Biggles). A nice cartoony look

[Skyraider3D]

Looks good mate, especially given the fext it's your first serious attempt at 2D!

If I may give one crit, it's to remove or rotate (CW) the diagonal clouds on the left. They create a very strange artificial horizon on this one.

I don't think it looks cartoony, by the way, and I don't think that would be the intention either.

PS. Great subject!

[peter]

Nice image Kevjon. Did You based Your painting on some real photography? I love the differences in the angles of roll of particular aircraft (i hope I'm understandable). This is something really hard to achieve in 2 dimensions.

[krazycolin]

Very cool... 2d digital painting??? wowsa!!!

[digiartist]

lovely stuff Kevin, the Wildcats look great from that angle!

[kevjon]

Thanks guys,

@Kiwi
It wasn't meant to be cartoony but I'll try to remove that look in future work. Need to study the work of real aviation artists more to see how they tackle certain things.

@Skyraider
Thanks for the tip about the diagonal cloud. Will remove it. It is a bit of left over from earlier composition idea I had.

@Peter
No photographic reference was used for the planes or background. I did refer to a profile of Thach's aircraft to ensure accuracy in camo and markings. What I did do though to ensure the aircraft looked correct was to draw up in 3D Max some basic splines that represented the outline of the aircraft and the main features. This took me about 3 to 4 hours to do. These were then rendered out black on white background and essentially become the sketch. Saved me a lot of time fighting with perspective or having to go down the descriptive geometry path. It also allowed me to play around with compostional ideas.

@KC, Digitartist
Thanks guys. Its a start, much room for improvement on future work. Second one is already begun where I am having to paint the ocean from height. So challenge myself a bit more on each piece. I think I'll leave aluminium aircraft alone for a while though, don't want to challenge myself too much !

[franken_johan]

Very nice (for 2D ;) ). Don't worry too much about the cartoony look. I think its because of the shape of the Wildcat. Fat and short.

Anyway I hope you are still gonna do 3D work. :)

[Mirko]

Nice work Kevin!

:salute:

[giant551]

really like where you are going with this kev, I like the look of the picture and personally wouldn't change it. It looks like a piece of art not a photo which in my opinion is a great thing:D

[kevjon]

@franken_johan
Thanks !
Yep, still be doing some 3D as I have 4 or 5 unfinished 3D planes that are past the halfway modelling point. Too much work has gone into them so far, not to finish.

@Mirko
Thanks, glad you like it.

@Giant551
Thanks Giant, only gonna make a slight change to this image as per skyraiders suggestion which is pretty easy and quick to do.

[Lukem]

Looks great Kevjon!

I could be on my own here, but would making the planes in the background a bit paler, or something, help the impression of depth?

[kevjon]

Thanks Lukem

I did try to fade out the distant planes by adding a blue atmospheric haze over it and then tried with brightness and contrast but didn't like the look of it so scrapped it. My excuse is that it's a pretty tight formation and not much atmosphere would be seen between nearest and furtherest aircraft. In future paintings I'm going to try to paint the distant planes with more faded/desaturated bluer colors to start with to get that impression of atmosphere and depth. It is a very important part of the final image either in 2D or 3D.

[Evan]

Very nice Kevin.

[Lukem]

I'm looking forward to seeing more 2D paintings from you Kevjon. Which method do you prefer as a matter of interest, 2D or 3D?

[kevjon]

Thanks Evan, and also for the tips on those Gnomen DVD's by Ryan Church. They are excellent and he has just released a new one which I now have as well.

@Lukem
I like both and I'll no doubt be swinging between the two. I think you are less limited in what you can do in 2D over 3D. With 3D you really need a large library of photographic backgrounds. In 2D you can just paint what you want and are only limited by your skill and imagination. Lot quicker to do 2D paintings over 3D images. I'm already working on my second painting so see how that comes up in a couple of weeks time ! Will post if I finish it.

[Lukem]

Can't wait to see it mate!

[Evan]

Thanks Evan, and also for the tips on those Gnomen DVD's by Ryan Church. They are excellent and he has just released a new one which I now have as well.

That's great to hear. I always worry a little bit when recommending that kind of thing as I know they are quite expensive. I have been very happy with all the DVD's I have purchased from Gnomon.

[allfiredup]

You know, I like this. You get the feeling that you're really flying with those Wildcats, the color's are nice and light, and really lighten it up so it almost makes you feel "floaty". It could be that I had too much caffeine, but, really, this is good stuff. Well done!

~DJ