“We’d like you to do a colour profile of Howard Hughes’ Racer, the H-1.” The chap I’ve been working with at Aerospace Publishing was on the other end of the phone. Nice fella, an expert on aircraft with an endless supply of interesting flying-related stories. “Yep, no problem,” I replied. “When do you need it?”
“Well… the deadline for Issue 3 is the end of the month.” He casually replied. A FORTNIGHT!!! I thought, panic mounting. I’ve never built an aircraft profile in less than six weeks! “Sure , no problem,” I answered, trying to keep my voice from betraying the fear that was about to put a strain on my underwear. “I’ll get onto it now.” Mr. Hughes’ famous Racer, executed in a fraction of the time I’m used to AND it has one of those impossibly shiny, highly polished aluminium surfaces! I’ve never had to render polished aluminium before and that frankly is as scary to any artist as the blank stare of an unmarked sheet of paper. What’s more, the profile was to be executed on a white background, so I had no reflections or ambient colour hues to help me describe the shiny surface. Bugger.
So how did I do it? I had to cut so many corners I was in danger of making a circle. And to be honest, I did end up completely over-cooking the lens flare filter at one stage and making my Racer look like it was festooned in pink Christmas tree lights, but I got there in the end: Not much detail, but enough where it counts. At the end of the day, I was not asked for one of my show pieces, just a piece of art that describes sufficiently what the H-1 looks like from the side. The bonus is I did it despite my demons, not in a fortnight but in 3 days. You see, I’ve always believed that the struggle is never between me and my art, but always between me and myself.
The Hughes H-1 Racer appears by kind consent of Aerospace Publishing who now own the copyright on this one. Thanks chaps!
Tags: Aerospace Publishing, aircraft, art, aviation art, bespoke art, digital art, dreambird, H-1, H-1 Racer, Howard, Hughes, Hughes H-1, ian reynolds, illustration, Midsummer Books, profile
Great post… But how do you handle people who argue?
I so rarely get worthwhile comments, it is never really an issue. Yours is one of the most useful for a while. I would welcome arguments, critical discussion, questions or anything related to the subject of planes or making artwork. My post “Me109 and a Darned Good Rant” is mainly about my complete frustration at the inane posts I get from people attempting to increase their SEO at my expense. I just delete frequently and live in hope that there are more people like you out there. Thanks for your question :0)
Some things just require a lot of effort, time, or patience.
I quite agree. Geoff Petty (author of How to be better at Creativity) once told me “…the definition of an expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less” :0)