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Henschel Hs P.135 (Work in Progress)
I'm hoping I can do a WIP from start to finish on this illustration. Some new Xara users may be interested in the steps I use in drawing up these kinds of illustrations. If I'm in the wrong place the moderators will hopefully send me packing to the right spot.This is a 1944 German design that never went into production. It was an interesting aircraft and I thought I would like to see what it would have looked like. I don't have the skill to draw these complex compound shapes free hand so I knock off a quick wire frame 3D to give me the basics. I often draw the 3-view in Xara vector, which I did for this project. I then like to lay out the background colours in vector so I stay in the same tones for the plane subject. So I'm showing the 3-view drawing of the plane I used vector for. I've then laid out the basic background colours I'm using. I've placed the wire frame over the background and I will now start drawing out the aircraft shapes in vector. Sort of the vector version of paint by numbers. The aviation guys like accuracy, so it helps incompetents like myself to draw something that is recognizable.I'll try and post each step as I go along.
Re: Henschel Hs P.135 (Work in Progress)
I'm impressed Gray, I also like what you wrote about the steps you used. When it's finished I'm sure it will be awesome. I find how you did the clouds so far to be interesting.
Re: Henschel Hs P.135 (Work in Progress)
So you do a wireframe in a 3D program and use this to build the vector drawing?
Re: Henschel Hs P.135 (Work in Progress)
Larry, I build the clouds in vector first, then I use a digital brush to finish them off. Just seems to work best for what I want. I used 6 different layers for these clouds so far.
Gary, yes I do create a 3D wire frame first to work from. It allows me to be creative as to the subject and composition I want to use. I do some real odd ball machines at times, which can have little or no photo examples to work from, such as this German plane.
Re: Henschel Hs P.135 (Work in Progress)
Fascinating, Gray, thanks for showing this.
Re: Henschel Hs P.135 (Work in Progress)
Quote:
So you do a wireframe in a 3D program ....
What 3D program do you use for this Gray?
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Re: Henschel Hs P.135 (Work in Progress)
Thanks Penny for having a look.
Egg,I use a very simple 3D program that is very limited in what it can do, but is very quick, which works just great for what I want. It's called RCcad. I've also used Blender in the past but RC cad is quick and dirty.
The next step I've done is to draw the shapes for the plane using linear fills to round out or give them depth. I use separate layers for everything and already have about 16 layers. A light line on the front of each wing gives them some sharpness, each wing and fuselage having their own layers. Stubby looking little thing isn't it? A long way to go yet to get this looking like it should. Eventually it will have a camo paint scheme.
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Re: Henschel Hs P.135 (Work in Progress)
Some added work to the wings in the form of camo paint job. I feather the edges of all the shapes to soften them up a little. The camo are linear fills. To give the wings a little texture I use the transparency tool with a layer of fractal cloud and a layer of fractal plasma. All surfaces have a texture to them. Both layers are adjusted to high transparency. Next will be the fuselage camo and texturing, done the same way.
Re: Henschel Hs P.135 (Work in Progress)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gray
Some added work to the wings in the form of camo paint job. I feather the edges of all the shapes to soften them up a little. The camo are linear fills. To give the wings a little texture I use the transparency tool with a layer of fractal cloud and a layer of fractal plasma. All surfaces have a texture to them. Both layers are adjusted to high transparency. Next will be the fuselage camo and texturing, done the same way.
Gary that's great! Thanks for sharing Your steps. I draw my watches after I took a photo of them and then all the little thinks I draw as vector on many lyears too.
Cheers.
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Re: Henschel Hs P.135 (Work in Progress)
Thanks, ernie-f. Yes indeed, layers are my friend.
A little more work on the camo and detailing. All the shapes are feathered and linear filled. Still have to add texture to the fuselage with the transparent tool, just like the wings. More paint work is also required to match the type of camo it is. Since this aircraft was never built, you do get some leeway in details.