Bristol F2b - a WIP

Russell Smith · **Posted:** Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:06 pm

Its been a long time since I posted anything here at the WIX. Looks like my buddy Wade has made a few friends over here, so I thought that perhaps I should drop back in and reintroduce myself.

For those of you who don't me, I, like Wade, am an aviation artist. My subjects of choice come from the Great War era - 1914-1918. I know most of you folks are probably more interested in big metal birds with P&W radials or perhaps purring Merlins, but for those of you who also appreciate the Great War birds as much as I do, I'll share a current WIP....

Two Birds With One Stone

Here's the skinny, straight from the combat log:

Squadron: No. 20
Date: 6/9/18
Time: 8:30 to 9 am
Type: Bristol Fighter E'2181
Locality: Cambrai - St. Quentin
Pilot: Capt. H.P. Lale
Observer: 2/Lt H.L. Edwards
Height: 18,000 to 14,000 feet

Remarks: About 40 Fokker Biplanes

Narrative:
"... the remaining E.A. had, in the meantime, made off. Capt. Lale had collected his formation and, flying South, saw formations of DH4's, Dolphins and SE5's going towards St. Quentin, about 2,000 feet below. Following them over, the Bristol Fighter formation arrived just as about 30 to 40 E.A. dived on the Dolphins.

One Fokker Biplane passed within 30 yards of Bristol Fighter E2181 (Pilot - Capt. Lale, Observer - 2/Lt Edwards). Capt. Lale put about 50 rounds into it and sent it down in flames. The observer (2/Lt Edwards) was in the meantime firing with double Lewis gun at another E.A. about 40 yards away on the left. This E.A. first spun, then appeared to gain control, but a few seconds later burst into flames. Both these E.A. appeared to be falling into the middle of St. Quentin."

This is third of three projects that I'm juggling right now. The client and I began discussing this one over a year ago. We both really like the idea of the simultaneous victory scored by one aircraft.

the client's specifications were simple: make it the same size and dimensions as Wolff's Requiem as it will hang in close proximity to that piece. The final dimensions will be 44" x 28.5". Those of you who have seen Wolff's Requiem in person know that its going to be a big boy (the Bristol itself will be approximately 33" wide on the canvas).

As for my own initial goal, I simply wanted to choose a view of the Brisfit that would highlight some of the unique lines of the aircraft (in addition, of course, to telling the story correctly).

A few weeks back I finally got an opportunity to sit down and sketch out some ideas for the composition. This is the one Nick chose, and I have to say that I too felt that it best described the action.

Of course, with a flight of Brisfits, 30-40 Fokkers, and a bunch of Dolphins, SE5s and DH-4's, there is going to be a LOT going on here. My goal is to make it action packed and exciting, but not busy, and in addition to the Bristols and DVII's I would like to include at lest a few of the other types back in the background.

Reading through the combat log you'll see that it specifically states that Edwards was firing at a Fokker on the left. However, in this composition I imagined that aircraft as having already been hit and zooming past the Brisfit so that he's now on the right. Lale's victim is already going down and he's turning the Brisfit to give chase to Edwards' victim just in case he needs to.

Yesterday I managed to sit down and work out a rough draft of the Brisfit perspective drawing. It actually isn't quite finished. There are still some details that I'm trying to narrow down - specifically what letter E'2181 carried on the side. 20Sq's markings consisted of the letters "A" through "S" located approximately below the pilot's cockpit. I've posted inquiries on a couple of forums to see if anyone might have information that might be able to help us out. I've found photos of "K" & "P", but neither of those are our bird. If I come up dry, I'll just choose a random letter.

I'm also holding off on the guns and the crew. I'd like to get the DVII's in place before I aim the Lewises.

The Bristol F2b carried 2 different exhaust configurations - a short pipe and a long pipe. I chose the short pipe configuration since a majority of photos I've seen from around that time show short pipes. Chances are, our bird carried them too.

and in context:

I'll be updating this thread as I progress.

Russell Smith · **Posted:** Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:07 pm

The perspective for first DVII. This is the DVII on the lower left. I changed his angle slightly from the original sketch by bringing his tail around closer to the viewer. He's now moving into the painting more than across the painting as he was originally. This will help draw your eye in more. I think a smoke trail leading back up and behind the cowl of the the Biff will really help the front end of the Biff pop out nicely.

I sat down and tried to figure out who our victims might have been and I think I've found a unit that will work well. Jasta War Diaries report 1 loss for Sept. 6, 1918 - a pilot with Jasta 71. That can't be either one of our guys as J71 was based too far South at this point in time to be in this action. By this point in the war the Germans pretty much knew that the war was lost, and many unit commanders were keeping poor records, so the fact that there is no report of these 2 victories doesn't necessarily mean anything. The fact that Lale & Edwards both report their victims as having burst into flames is pretty strong evidence that their claims are legitimate (A claim of "out of control" or "probable" could be considered speculative as it was based on what the pilot thought he saw, but to actually see flames and smoke coming out of a victim is a little more substantial).

Since I was coming up short on losses, I checked on what units were in the area. Turns out there were many to choose from - Jastas 4, 1, 59, 46, 6, 10, 42 and 5 to name a few. That didn't really narrow things down, so I then took a look at German claims for that day. Lo and behold, 2 units - Jasta 11 and Jasta 31 - put in claims for Dolphins over St. Quentin at 9:45/9:50 (the German clocks were 1 hour ahead of the allies). That puts these two units in the right place at the right time, and we know from the combat report that there were Dolphins involved in the fight.

The combat report describes our victims as "not camouflaged". In my mind, that kind of rules out the possibility of Jasta 11 with their brightly colored a/c. Besides, Jasta 11's records were pretty solid, and we would probably know if that unit had lost any aircraft that day. In contrast, Jasta 31's records are comparatively slim. In addition, there is only 1 known photo of Jasta 31's DVIIs, and its very blurry. In short, I think we can safely go with Jasta 31 and mark the DVII's with some fairly conservative markings. It would probably be fun to include some J11 DVIIs. The J11 claim was from Lothar himself, so I may try to squeeze him in somewhere in the background.

For this DVII, I went with a 4c lozenge scheme and a simple white striped pattern on the side of the fuselage. I'll do something similar for the other victim.

My next step will be to play around with the position of the 2nd DVII. I think that perhaps I can find another angle that might work a little better.

As for the lighting, my original thought was that the sun would be roughly at the the viewer's 9 o'clock high position. I thought that this would give us a good mix of warm colors contrasted against the cool tones of the backdrop. I also find that the shadow of the upper wing sweeping slightly backwards along the fuselage really helps to guide your eye towards the observer.

Russell Smith · **Posted:** Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:09 pm

The positioning of the upper DVII had been nagging at me, so I decided to re-think that one. According to the combat report, the DVII spun first, and then caught fire. That being said, I decided to depict the DVII just as he is going into his spin (I've actually set the control surfaces to put him in a spin). I also decided to flip the composition so that the DVII is seen attacking from the left (as stated in the report) rather than having passed the Biff and now being on the right (as I previously imagined). I think this contrast in directions is going to create better dynamics for the piece, as well as be more accurate to the combat report.

Here is how I now imagine the scenario:
Lale has scored his kill and has started to follow behind when he notices the 2nd DVII attacking from the left. He turns to the left, into the direction of the attack, as doing so will drop the port side wing of the Biff and give his gunner, Edwards a clear shot. I'll indicate some hits on DVII in the final painting.

There are no good photos of J31 DVII's, so I simply put some generic markings on the side of the fuselage. I'm creating my values studies in reverse order on this piece - the DVII's first and then the Biff. The reason for that is that the positioning of the DVIIs needs to be final before I finish out the Biff by adding in the crew and the guns (remember that the guns have to be aimed at a specific spot to be scoring hits on the DVII).

Russ

Russell Smith · **Posted:** Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:10 pm

I got the second DVII filled out. Now its time to break off of this one for a few weeks and get a couple other projects finished up. The first step when I got back to this one would be to work on the pencil study for the Bristol.

Russell Smith · **Posted:** Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:11 pm

I finally got the Bristol finished and dropped in. Now its on to the background elements and compositional adjustments.

Russell Smith · **Posted:** Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:11 pm

The composition with the background completed:

Russell Smith · **Posted:** Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:13 pm

After a hiatus of a few weeks (working on other projects), I finally got a chance to get this one moved along again. I adjusted the position of the 3 main aircraft slightly and added in the background aircraft.

The background aircraft were really a challenge. According to the combat report there were a lot of aircraft of many different types involved in this engagement - Bristols, DVIIs, Se5s, Dolphins and DH4s. I wanted see how far I could push the idea of a large, intense dogfight without crossing into the dreaded realm of chaos. Of course, the background aircraft should help the flow of the piece as well as establish the idea of the huge fight, but they must not distract from the main subject.

To make things a little easier, I decided not to show the formation of DH4's They wouldn't have really added anything to the overall story or feel of the piece, and in fact, would have been distracting. Instead, I decided to focus on the fighters.

Each background aircraft has a purpose. If a particular aircraft didn't guide the eye or provide balance, then it didn't make the cut. Final count - 19 aircraft in this painting (some are really small).

Russell Smith · **Posted:** Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:14 pm

I finished the color study (studies) for this one a couple of weeks ago. The original lighting scheme came out pretty well, but as I got closer to being finished with it I realized that it had some problems. I had re-shot the lighting references just prior using the Wingnut Wings Bristol F2b. The "new" references had more light on the tail, and thus, the tones were lighter. As a result, I had too many midtones on midtones in the color study. The study wasn't bad, mind you. The color and lighting was nice, but the aircraft didn't pop out of the scene as well as I hoped. Also, with all of the action and dynamics going on in this scene, too much color could make it too busy.

Upon nearing completion with the study. I began to realize that the strength of this composition lay in the lines and the shapes, not the color (which is almost always the case in any composition). The study didn't really emphasize those aspects. I began to play with other option in my head and realized that the image would be much more effective if it were backlit. I gave it a go, and sure enough - much improved! The backlit scenario not only is more dramatic, but it emphasizes the lines and shapes of the aircraft (particularly the Bristol) much more effectively.

I'll probably warm up the clouds in the backlit version a little more. The color study is slightly cooler than I would like, but it should still give you the general idea.

Two Birds With One Stone
color study #1
10.5" x 16.25"
oil on Illustration board

Two Birds With One Stone
color study #2
10.5" x 16.25"
oil on Illustration board

I'm currently blocking in the finished painting and should have some in-progress shots of that in a few days.

Russ

Holedigger · **Posted:** Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:15 pm

It is always fun to see the thought process and explanation behind your work. Thanks for sharing. So WHEN is the color study coming out?!?! :shock:

Time is always that commodity that runs short! Ooops.....the color upload popped up while I was posting........slowwwwwww feeeeed!!!!!!

Russell Smith · **Posted:** Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:18 pm

Hey Holedigger. Good to see someone I know here! The color studies are finished (in fact, the 1st one has already been purchased). The client agreed with me that #2 - the backlit version - was the way to go, so that's the route I'm taking with the big version.

Holedigger · **Posted:** Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:21 pm

Really like the atmospheres! Great feel!

Mgawa · **Posted:** Thu Jul 30, 2009 1:27 pm

Hi Russel

I did not know that you are also member here

Cheers

snj5 · **Posted:** Fri Jul 31, 2009 2:53 am

Absolutely well done! Genius talent.
Many thanks for sharing this fantastic work!

Russell Smith · **Posted:** Sat Aug 01, 2009 3:30 pm

I've finished blocking in the local color. This layer will serve as a base for additional layers of transparent and semi-opaque glazes, which will be added in a couple of weeks after this layer is sufficiently dry. Right now, most of the tones are more neutral than they'll be in the end and the background is actually a bit light. The glazes will enrich both the colors and the values. and give the whole thing a real sense of depth.

I'm going to change the gunner's position slightly. I blotted out where I had him painted in and I'm going to adjust him so that he's standing a little higher in the gunner's position. He'll also be leaning back more against the tilt of the aircraft. I might also possibly add an additional a/c in the background too, but that's yet to be decided.

I took an quick reference shot in the mirror to give myself an idea of how I wanted to change the gunner.

Chicoartist · **Posted:** Sun Aug 02, 2009 2:16 pm

Good to see you back over here, Russ!

Wade

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