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Old 07-23-2012, 10:08 AM
Leif Ohlsson's Avatar
Leif Ohlsson Leif Ohlsson is offline
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The Fi-1 vintage Swedish sailplane

Aaron ("Murphyaa" of Oddball productions) very generously both made a paper model in a very reasonably large scale of the Fi-1 sailplane, and donated it as a free download available in the downloads section of this site.

The Fi-1 is of great interest to me, since it is one of the very few original Swedish glider designs. The year was 1942, and there is only one of the seven made still extant, at the Ĺlleberg museum of vintage gliders. See this post and the following in the "Sailplanes" thread.

Now, Aaron encouraged me to tinker with his model, and I'd like to reciprocate his kindness by showing some progress made. I've been working on the wing part, enlarged to 1/16 and manually redrawn. The outline is the one Aaron arrived at for his model, and I am very grateful for it. 3D-work I cannot do, but I can do texturizing. So here's what it looks like after one days work:



The reason I want to show it, although I haven't got any further than this, is that I'm so happy with the result, and that it wasn't actually too difficult. Here's how it was done:



This is the wing textured with mahoghanny ply. Those set on doing this kind of work will have figured out this part already, as witnessed by most commercial downloadable kits. It's the area of fabric-covered rib & spar structure I'm aimed at getting a good solution for - the fabric should seem to touch the ribs, while the rear spar should be less visible.



Here we have overlaid one layer of "fabric" over the structure. The "fabric" is positioned between the ply on top, and the rib & spar structure below. This layer is made up of a very dull and dreary kind of olive drab, namely CMYK 10-10-50-15, with an opacity of 50 percent. You may want to go more towards the pure translucent grey if you are aiming for modern synthetic covering materials. But this is 1942, and I was going for cloth impregnated with clear dope, slightly yellowish.



Here we have done two tings: 1) An extra layer, above the original fabric layer. This one is made up of single patterns of all the areas between the ribs (not paying any attention to the spar, since that is not touched by fabric). These areas are grouped, and at the same 50 percent opacity. The fabric area now is temporarily much darker. 2) Add a "Stylized" option, and "Inner Glow", opacity 100 - blur 2 mm. With the "edges" option checked we get the above - which isn't too exciting, right? But now try the "center" option:



This last bit about "center" is most important since that is what actually lighens up the whole area, and blots out the underlying spar, instead of making the fabric darker (50 + 50 percent…). I am very pleased with this, and quite surprised. What a difference!

This was made in Illustrator (patterns and shadow effects), plus Photoshop for saving chunks of textures. Effects, etc., will have other names in other brands of software. But I hope this demonstrates what is possible with quite simple means. Please give me your comments how you solve similar problems - by the look of many commercial kits, this is an area where there is room for improvement.

Leif
Attached Thumbnails
The Fi-1 vintage Swedish sailplane-wing-r-textured.jpg   The Fi-1 vintage Swedish sailplane-wing-textures-no-fabric.jpg   The Fi-1 vintage Swedish sailplane-wing-textures-fabric-only.jpg   The Fi-1 vintage Swedish sailplane-wing-textures-edges.jpg   The Fi-1 vintage Swedish sailplane-wing-textures-center.jpg  


Last edited by Leif Ohlsson; 07-23-2012 at 11:07 AM.
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  #2  
Old 07-23-2012, 12:52 PM
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John Bowden John Bowden is offline
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Quote:
This layer is made up of a very dull and dreary kind of olive drab, namely CMYK 10-10-50-15, with an opacity of 50 percent. You may want to go more towards the pure translucent grey if you are aiming for modern synthetic covering materials. But this is 1942, and I was going for cloth impregnated with clear dope, slightly yellowish.
So....... is this the original color Leif?

Or was it painted a different color after completion?
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Old 07-23-2012, 12:56 PM
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Bengt Fredén Bengt Fredén is offline
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The Fi-1 Vintage Swedish Sailplane Model

Absolutely stunning, Leif!

When enlarged, it looks exactly like plywood veneer. Fantastic work. And you are so right, there are indeed many commercial models that could use some improvement on textures and shading, which means so much for the artistic appreciation and enjoyment and appearance of a completed card model.

I have promptly downloaded both the vintage Swedish 'Fi-1' 1/34 scale model and also, by the way, the interesting vintage 'Inka II' Slovenian 1/16th scale model (with the original model drawing)! Two beautiful sailplane card models with great historical interest and significance. Thank you for sharing!

Keep up the good work!
All the best from fellow Swede
Bengt
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Old 07-23-2012, 04:47 PM
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Leif, you're doing a such great job of texturing that you have my attention on this one also. Getting ready to reduce it and see if I can do your work justice. You have an artistic talent that I envy. John
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Old 07-24-2012, 01:30 AM
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Leif Ohlsson Leif Ohlsson is offline
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What the "fabric"looks like

John B. - Sorry for being unclear about the fabric part - the "fabric" color of CMYK 10-10-50-15 is just something I came up with looking for a color that would look like semi-transparent, doped fabric when you reduce its opacity in the drawing programme (Illustrator in my case):

Here's what it looks like "undiluted":



It is interesting to compare the patch overlaid with the final effect on the fabric portions of the wing below. The dreary olive drab is turned into the semi-opaque fabric by the simple procedure outlined in the last post.

If you want the look of a more modern synthetic covering material, I suggest you move away from the green-yellowish tinge, towards a cooler grey in the color you start with.

Hello Bengt - nice to see you as always; glad you like the wood texturing. Nothing very fancy there, just go hunting for "free textures" and search for wooden ones. Save as great big swatch as you can get hold of. If you need larger swaths (and you will), copy, paste, mirror and join seamlessly in your graphic programme. Repeat on the new bigger swath until you get the size you need.

I'm sure there is a more elegant way of letting the graphic programme do this job of manufactuirng textured swatches. If anyone would care to teach me how in Photoshop, I'll try to learn…

Johnflys2 - thanks for kind words, and very nice to know you're watching over me!

Now i'll go and try to spray some paint over the nice wood & fabric structure, just to see how it compares…

Leif
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The Fi-1 vintage Swedish sailplane-fabric-sample.jpg  
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Old 07-24-2012, 10:11 AM
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Jan Kytop Jan Kytop is offline
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An other big thank you to Aaron and Leif for this fabulous model.
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Old 07-24-2012, 10:53 AM
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This so far over my head I wish my smart box could understand it. What is the effect you are looking for? BTW, I'm with Jan on this. Wonderful models and very glad you guys are always working on it. wc
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Old 07-25-2012, 12:46 AM
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Leif Ohlsson Leif Ohlsson is offline
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Spray painting

And thank you, Jan, for starting the "Sailplane" thread in the first place. I have thoroughly enjoyed what it has led to so far. Waddie - don't be frightened of the technicalities; what I'm discussing is methods for drawing papermodels of sailplanes in their unpainted or varnished state, so that the translucent areas of fabric over wood structures look best.

Spray painting

This snapshot of the spray painting of the wings (not really - I'm showing off…) is an attempt to demonstrate why I like to work with textures so much more than painted versions of aircraft.



Painting a fabric-covered structure takes away almost all "life" of the raw wood & fabric aircraft. No translucent fabric areas; the various wood textures are hidden, and so are all the delicate frame members - ribs, spars, gussets , fillets, hatches, etc.

If a paintwork on a full-sized aircraft is successful, all underlying structures and textures are hidden; everything is the same shiny unbroken painted surface - pretty, but also pretty lifeless.

In my view, that is.

Working with paper models, however, we can have the best of two worlds. We can build an imaginary complicated framework in as many layers as we wish, and replicate it by printing it on just a single paper surface.

And we can make a second version, with paint over the framework. Or make a mixed version. Who's to say what wonderful mixtures of paint and plain varnished areas may have existed, somewhere, somehow?

So, for those wishing to replicate the original Fi-1 sailplane, I added a coat of paint. One bit of poetic license I allowed myself, though - the ugly but correct vomit-colored light yellow was softened towards a rich cream (at least that's what I'm aiming for).

It was not so easy to make a decent representation of what paint over fabric-covered areas really looks like. I had to go deeper into Photoshop than is my comfort zone to arrive at the above, which is probably still exaggerated - but I didn't want to lose all trace of what the underlying framework looks like.

Tech notes (notes to myself)

New Fi-1 yellow (for now): CMYK 10-5-25-4; unbroken base layer.
Pattern - fabric covered areas; one small rectangle for each little fabric covered area over empty spaces such as between ribs; grouped and filled with same yellow; overlaid the base paint layer.
Pattern effects of this layer, made in Photoshop:
+ Inner shadow - Opacity 10-25 - Distance 5 - Choke 0 - Size 5
+ Inner glow - Opacity 25 - Center - Choke 25 - Size 100-150 - Range 50
Opacity 50 of pattern layer imported from Photoshop.

This sounds very impressive and difficult. Let it therefore be known that I have only the faintest of ideas what all these terms and numbers mean. I just pushed various levers back and forth to get close to something I can live with. You can do that, too.

Leif
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The Fi-1 vintage Swedish sailplane-wing-r-spray-painted.jpg  
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Old 07-25-2012, 04:10 AM
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As always Leif, excellent research and workmanship. I have been following this thread with great interest. I hope to use some of the techniques here in my Moustique project when I get restarted in it. Modelling has been rather sporadic for me of late due to other commitments, so visiting here keeps my interest piqued.
Thanks for continuing to be an inspiration.
All the best and happy modelling.
Bernie
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Old 07-25-2012, 08:43 AM
cmdr199212 cmdr199212 is offline
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Wow, that is really impressive!
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