Remaking the Pou du Ciel to 1/16 scale wood & fabric

[Leif Ohlsson]

After finishing the remake of Philippe Rennesson's Fauvel AV36, I have started looking at his Pou du Ciel, the Flying Flea.

Here's a little bit of progress, which I couldn't stop myself from sharing. I think it is so good, even if I say so myself:



Can you see how the painted logo on the backside is faintly visible through two layers of doped fabric? And it is not dacron or anything modern either, but slightly yellowish cotton, since this is 1934-35.

I'd like to go through how this part was made, since the method will be roughly the same for the rest of the model.

But first a little bit of background. You can say hello to the original designer Philippe Renneson ("Criquet" on this site), and find links to several of his models here. There is a build of the Fiddler's Green Pou du Ciel by Bob Martin here. And there is a number of photo galleries with material about the Pou du Ciel, which I once collected, here.

At the time, I obviously intended to build a scaled-up version of Philippe Rennesson's blue-and-white Pou du Ciel. Now I think it's just as well that it didn't happen, since - whether I build this version or not - it is going to be so nice to try to bring it to a happy ending ("… he said slightly trembling, hardly daring to think that he would have the perseverance to carry it through…").

For the fin we need a little bit of background material. Old folders with collected photos, and a new search for photos on the net was carried out. This is what we are going to use:

- A photoshop document with swaths of different textures in separate layers.

- A three-view of the Pou du Ciel, collected from Flight magazine 1935, at the Flightglobal pdf-archive.

- And a museum shot of the fin with a nice logo painted on to it. [link expired].

-A nice photo of the fin structure from a modern re-build of the Pou-du-Ciel

[Leif Ohlsson]

The first step is to open Philippe Rennesson's original pdf in Illustrator. It is almost not possible, since he has used an original software which creates colour fields by filling them with innumberable coloured paths, in several layers to boot, in order to create the correct colour by mixing simpler ones. The files take a VERY long time to open.

The cleaning-up itself is very laborious, and I have found no quick solution. At the end of a couple of days of this work your eyes are bleeding and you are well on your way to a new bout of mouse-arm. Eventually, however, the last offending coloured little path is gone from the original sheets, and only the black-and-white outlines of parts remain. Our little fin now looks like this:

- The cleaned-up original outline of the fin (to the right).

Next, we import the fin part of the 1935 Flight drawing, and place it under the original outline:

- Flight 1935 drawing imported

Now it is easy to draw new outlines, of the rim, the ribs, the central spar portion, and the gussets. We have now left the original Rennesson drawing completely behind:

- Redrawn structure

Now is the time to go into Photoshop. We copy the vector outlines made in Illustrator, and copy them into a new Photoshop document, as a so-called "vector-smart" object. This we use to make different selections (rim, gussets, entire fin, etc) which we paste temporarily into our standard Photoshop textures documents (see last post, materials to be used).

From that document we copy and paste exact selections of rim bits, rib bits, gusset bits (all of them together, not diffictult), into our Fin Photoshop document. This is what that document now looks like:

- Structure in Photoshop

Things start to get interesting when we add the bottom layer of translucent fabric, and shade it appropriately (while at the same time hiding the vector pattern in the Photoshop document):

- Bottom layer fabric shaded, still in Photoshop

This photoshop document is now imported into our regular Illustrator document, below the structure outlines. Looks very nice, doesn't it?:

- Photoshop document imported under Illustrator outlines

Unfortunately, the structure has one layer of fabric left, namely the front layer. It will hide most of that nice structure, but that's reality for you. Luckily, doped cotton fabric is slightly translucent, so we still see some of the structure, don't we?:

- Front layer of fabric added

Now it is time to go back into Photoshop again, and try to make something of that nice logo. Three steps are illustrated here:

- Making the logo, from photo to vector

Four sections of text and image are isolated and treated individually in Photoshop to get maximum contrast (middle). In Illustrator, this selection is put through the "Live trace & live paint" process (one single press on a button). I have no idea what goes on in the mind of the computer, but the result (right) is pure vector.

It looks like it's ready to just colour individually, but that's not quite true - I spent an entire evening going over each little bit greatly magnified and superimposed on the original photo, to get it as good as possible. Still, this is a wonderful tool, and a first for me. It only took a day and a night to learn, and that I consider well-spent time.

We are closing in on the end now. Here's the final touch:

- Text going on to the back

Note how a mirrored version of the text to the left is on its way under the part on the right. You can see through two layers of translucent fabric how it's sliding in under the front version of the logo.

Superimposing the two birds exactly, we get the final version:

- Finished fin

All done!

Or at least almost. The interior structure (simple piece of 2mm laminate) and hinges remain. But this is enough for a basic run-through of the method.

[Leif Ohlsson]

It is good to make a note of the various settings for translucence, opacity, shadow type & size, etc., so you can go back and do the same for other parts. Here's what I used:

Layers in Illustrator:

Rim outline 0.25px, 60% black
Fabric top psd placed psd-file (below), 60% opacity (in Illustrator)
Outlines 0.25px, 60% black
Fin psd placed file (below)
Fin Flight dwg (now invisible)
Fin original model (now invisible)

Layers in Photoshop:

Fin fabric.psd (top layer; imported as separate file into Illustrator)

Fin.psd (all the rest, imported as single file)
Vector outlines (invisible)
Gussets (mahoganny)
Ribs (spruce horizontal), Rim (spruce; vertical & horizontal)
Fabric shadows inner shadows 60% opac.
120° light
20 px distance
0 % choke
35 px size
(Fabric shadows is the rear fabric layer so to speak)

This may not mean anything to anybody else (and I don't profess to understand what the numbers mean; I'm fiddling til I'm satisfied), but the point here is you should make this kind of notes - in a way that's meaningful to you - and save them together with your work. It will save you a lot of grief later on, I promise.

[Knife]

Your techniques are well explained and the results speak for themselves. I have the original model sheets printed out for construction one day, but really love what you're doing with this kit. Like a lot of us here I enjoy the unusual subject and the Pou-du-Ceil certainly qualifies. I hope somebody will model some of the more modern versions someday. I will watch this thread carefully and will try to learn from your lessons. Thank you for sharing your techniques with us.

[eatcrow2]

Always a pleasure to follow one of your threads!!!! Wonderful work, well explained...

[Rubenandres77]

Leif, this is also looking wonderful. I envy your abilities in Illustrator.
And your explanations are very clear and delightful to follow.

I have no doubt that this will also be a beautiful project.

[cjwalas]

Thanks for showing us this and the process behind it, Leif! It's a great education, even if most of us don't have your skill and artistry to implement it!
Chris

[EricGoedkoop]

Originally Posted by Leif Ohlsson

Now I think it's just as well that it didn't happen, since - whether I build this version or not - it is going to be so nice to try to bring it to a happy ending ("… he said slightly trembling, hardly daring to think that he would have the perseverance to carry it through…").

I'll tell you , Leif - I'm very nearly at the end of a fairly ambitious project myself (as you know) and the sense of satisfaction is enormous. As much I like to fiddle about with things and as much as I truly believe there's nothing wrong with that, finally having a finished model sitting on the desk is something.

I'd be lying, though, if I didn't say that it probably would've ended up half-finished in the top of the closet if it weren't for my better half not allowing me to quit. . . .

[Swampfox]

Leif,

Excellent explanation of your technique. I've seen your other work and you have that semi-translucent look down to a science..... I'm very familiar with both Photoshop and Illustrator and it all makes sense to me.....

I'll be following your thread to see how this one ends!!

Swampfox

[Art Deco]

Beautiful graphics work! And a very thorough, well-written presentation of the process!