b29flteng wrote:
What I find fascinating is catching all of the correct subtle details ...
Thanks for the kind words. Much appreciated! Those little details are 'referenced' from any and all photos and books, etc. In this particular case, the client who commissioned the piece is in touch with the daughter of the pilot of "Flying Dutchman", Capt. Neil Van Wyk. She supplied the pics below, among others.
As you can see below, this plane has seen some service. My painting depicts this plane a few weeks earlier in her service than the shots below, so I had to 'interpolate' and lessen the staining a little for my mid-July 1944 time period. It's a judgement call as to how much staining/wear to show, but as accurate as this and all the "details" are, the whole painting falls apart if a good tonal structure is missing ...
Slavishly rendering "detail" for detail's sake won't save a poorly planned piece of art. The aviation artist must in the end balance all this and satisfy two demanding near-polar extremes: the rivet counters and the timeless principles of good art. Aviation art is like maritime and other forms of transport art - we must frame accurate depictions of our subjects (because our prime audience is usually intimately familiar with all the little details of our subject/scene) within our knowledge of what will stand the test of time art-wise.
Enough blabbing --
Wade
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