Hi Ladies and Gentlepeople...

Since I found this great site, I discovered a hobby section.

Let me tell you a little about my specific passion that used to be a fulltime job but I now referred back to the hobby department: producing aviation art.

Since I could hold a pencil and brush, I've been drawing and painting airplanes. Subjects I found (and still find) at airfields, museums and photographs as example. In the last 3 years I also specialized in digitally produced art: DigiArt or E-paintings.

To elaborate on the latter, there might be a slight misunderstanding for the uninformed people. This is not about the simple copy/paste of images, whether these were ripped off a site or not, with all the copyright issues involved. No, this about really creating a genuine form of art, using parts produced or photographed by myself analoguely and/or using images from friends who know what I do with their fruits and gave me permission.

I intend to display many e-paintings of mine on this website. Most of them will be digitals.

How does an e-painting come about?

Well, I start of with either a plane that I painted myself and scanned, or a photo (be it from myself, a friendly photographer, a copyright-free publicity shot, or a screenshot while flying Flightsim myself). Second step is the background. This can either be a scenery that I or a friend photographed, a backdrop that I painted before and scanned or a digital scenery that I rendered in programs like TerraGen, Bryce and/or Mojoworld. Everything comes together in Photoshop CS2. There I really compose the final image. That simple copy/paste story could not be further from the truth. No image (be it mine or someone else's) is perfect and needs extensive modification.

For the purpose of this topic I produced the following step-by-step image, using a Lockheed Martin PR-shot and a TerraGen background I produced before...





I hope the images speak for themselves. As you can see I had to extensively rework the JSF itself, and there is a lot of manual brushing involved, which I do using a mouse and a Wacom pen and tablet. Especially the vapour around the JSF is a lot of work. This whole demonstration took me about 1hr but that's because I already had reworked the plane and produced the background. Add these activities and the image would have taken about 6hrs. produced in an analogue fashion (using paint on canvas) it would have taken me 30/40hrs, with the advantage of having a real painting hanging on the wall. Many customers, however, are into publications and don't care for the original artwork. To them it's the result that counts...

I hope there is a little insight now in a genuine art form that is here to stay. My mission is to show the dynamics of military flight and to place the viewer in the middle of Flight Ops as they happen. A situation where no journalist is ever present with his camera...

Looking forward to your reactions, folks...

This can either be a scenery that I or a friend photographed, a backdrop that I painted before and scanned or a digital scenery that I rendered in programs like TerraGen, Bryce and/or Mojoworld. Everything comes together in Photoshop CS2.