New drawing started..another aircraft lol

[602Sqn_Puff]

Shows a Mk1A of 602 Sqn coming into land, its for an exhibition in 3 weeks opened by the Duke of Hamilton, who's father was pre war C/O of the Sqn. So far its about 3-4hrs work and starting to shape up

'Slow and LO' WIP { Title taken from the code letters of 602 Sqn LO }

[XabbaRus]

Very good. How did your other one go?

[602Sqn_Puff]

Thanks, I was lucky enough to have 'Ginger' accepted to the Guild of Aviation Artists Annual Exhibition in London...so Im off there with my wife for the opening day 23rd July

[Linton]

Very nice work.Do you do any other aircraft though?Airliners???

[TteFAboB]

The pencil master returns. Always impressive to look at your stuff.

[Chock]

Looking good so far, and I know it's at an early stage, but I spotted a couple of things on it you might want to tweek or add, I've scanned some pics from books I have which might assist you too (see below).

Not a big deal, but the squadron code letters appear to extend deeper onto the wing root fairing in two of my pics, so you might want to change that, it looks like the lettering is over the roundel too. More importantly, your drawing appears to depict the wrong propeller on the aircraft, the two pictures below indicate that 602 Spits (most of which were ordered from Vickers-Armstrongs as a batch of 500 between June and August) were fitted with the DeHavilland prop (a more pointed spinner), rather than the Rotol one (a more bulbous spinner) as in your picture, certainly in the top picture this looks to be the case. Of course most Spitfires eventually ended up getting the Rotol one, so your picture would probably be accurate if it depicts an aircraft from late August 1940 onwards.

I also noticed that the undercarriage oleos appear to be in the under compression position (i.e. on the ground), in truth they don't actually extend much further when the weight is off the wheels, but since it's a drawing and not a photograph, you might want to extend them a smidge to create this impression. Personally, I'd move the pilot a little so he appears to be peering around the nose, if he was coming straight in at the height your sketched-in ground is at, he'd be completely unable to see the airstrip (which is why most taildraggers in that era would fly a curved approach, as you probably know). Then again, he might be just about to turn, so this isn't a big deal either!

The rear navigation light appears to be missing from the rudder too (although I know you might not have sketched that bit in yet).

One last thing, I like the title of your picture, but being 'slow and low' in a Spitfire would be considered a bad approach and any flyer might take that as a bit of an insult!

Feel free to ignore my comments and call me a rivet counter if you like by the way, but since I am also a graphic artist, I know how annoying it is when you've completed some artwork to then spot something you wished you'd changed. So I thought it might help to point this all out while you were still at an early stage in your drawing, which I suspect is going to look really great incidentally, judging by the tone-work on the nose.

Hope you take this all as helpful rather than critical, as that's my intention, and even if you ignore it all, you've still got the pics to check out!

At Drem in (possibly) March 1940


Also at Drem, (definitely) May 1940


The weight off the wheels position on a Mark 1 Spit (although this isn't actually a Mark 1, but similar)


Chock

[Reaves]

I like art that looks like stuff, and what you've done looks very good.

[Heibges]

That looks fantastic!

Everyone can draw where I work except for me, and it bums me out.

Keep at it!

[602Sqn_Puff]

Thanks for the comments, and all the information is invaluable to try and get this right. Chock, many thanks for the help, the spit depicted is later in the BofB. 602 went to Westhampnett in Aug 13th 1940 and stayed till Dec. The code letters will be corrected when I get to the shading as they will also change to LO-B { flown by Pilot Officer Nigel Rose..asked him on the phone last night what aircraft he flew lol }. The tail nav light will also be added...since the picture was taken I have slightly narrowed the cowl under the aircraft..looked to big and fat and also extended the undercarriage and made the wheels larger..anyway I'll keep you all posted.

With the new changes

[Chock]

Damn, you work fast, whenever I do artwork it takes ages. You should have seen how long it took me to do all the crap for that War Movie thing!

Still, that's probably because I'm a lazy git :rotfl:

Glad to see someone is keeping all that stuff alive though, it looks great, and I do like the fact that you're concentrating on 602. If you've seen that movie of mine, you'll notice that it features 603, who were also one of the 'Scottish' Squadrons up at Drem for a while. 603 being my fave squadron, largely because I have some bits from Pinckney's Spitfire after the wreck was excavated some years ago, including one of the panels which actually still has the paint on it, even after crashing and having been buried for decades! Guess Supermarine really knew how to build those things!

Chock

[602Sqn_Puff]

Another two and half hours and Im happy with it, decided today to change the name of the drawing from 'Slow and Low' to 'Bringing Her In' after talking to Nigel Rose who flew LO-B during the BofB...anyways

[Heibges]

I work with a lot of artists, and it's funny how they always keep track of how many hours they have put into a drawing, and put it into their portfolios.

I guess the time it takes to get a drawing to a certain state is reflective of the artists skill.

[602Sqn_Puff]

Took a while { about one and a half hours } to complete the bloody pilot lol

[Reaves]

You should organise with Neal to start selling some of these through subsim. Most of us are as interested in aircraft as we're into Subs.

If you're not into money you could always auction some and give the cash to charity.

[602Sqn_Puff]

Well another two hours down the line and she's starting to really shape up..