This was a kind of 'off model' model sheet. I have an uncanny knack of only drawing stuff that passingly stands by any 'model sheet' I've set up.

Its not that I don't believe in model sheets you see, its just that they always seem to happen to everyone else, not me.

These were drawn out on paper, cleaned up with much sweating and swearing (I hadn't cleaned a thing up sonce putting down my white cotton gloves 10 years earlier,) and scanned.

This was before I'd really started using Illustrator, though I had been using Photoshop for a few years, and I hope I never have to do it again. Gor bless technology...

This was an earlier version of this piece when I had just settled on a less formal format for the versing. I liked this for quite some time before realizing that it would have to change to match the rest of the book.

I was able to salvage the basic composition for the final image, the numbers remained a strong element in the final piece, the boat was largely carried over although I introduced color into the final design and changed the format somewhat.

One of the things that seems to work for me on my personal projects is the slightly disjointed way that I approach the projects. When I write I tend to just write, when I draw or design I'm not concerned with the writing. I've tried to do both at once in the past but it was too difficult and I would end up scrapping what I had done. Both parts take a different part of the mind to achieve, its not words and pictures but one or the other.

Maybe I'm just too simple, but theres a limit to what one person can do.

PS I hope you haven't found your own limit yet.

When I started working on this image (this is the first color sketch) I thought it was so right and was hugely happy. The whole thing just seemed to glow, it hung, as I like to say.

After a month of hard slog in which I abandoned it countless times I eventually settled on something entirely different.

So, whats the point?

I think its that as an artist you have to keep an open mind, it is the journey that leads to the destination and without one the other is meaningless. Without an open mind we force ourselves to repeat mistakes and follow useless leads and directions.

Without an open mind we would always be stuck in one place that didn't allow for change or growth. It may be a place that we like to be, but even the things we like to be must be discarded eventually if we are to go forward.

And the point? Well, thats usually the sharp bit at the end...

This you have to see. Its a one third working model of a Ferrari 312PB. (1973 Group5 S3000 Endurance car.)

Obsessive doesn't even begin to cover the guy who put this together, he even learned to blow glass to model the headlights.

The car is profiled on Jalopnik as well as having a gallery dedicated to it at Fine Art Models.

1977 Ferrari 312-T2

This is one of my favorite cars from the 70's. Its beautiful in a strange over-nostriled kind of way.

The image is from the excellent atspeedimages.com. I recommend that you take a look at the gallery over there. They also have a 1976 version a little higher in the gallery list which would have been exactly like the one driven by Lauda in his dreadful crash at the Nurburgring during the 76 season.

Whats the point of having a blog if you can't update the damn thing. Blogger acting up again.

Jesus H. Priest.

I'll be working on a birthday card for my girl, if I can upload some stuff later I will.

I'm going to be busy today so I thought I'd post and oldie from a book project. Its a combination of Illustrator and Photoshop using a lot of levels.

The type is set up to print in silver (Pan 877) on the left hand side. I spent a lot of time sailing when I was a kid and I love boats, (but not as much as cars.)

The process for this piece was fairly straightforward. The image was mostly done in black and white and then I used adjustment layers to add the color, mostly overlays in fact.

The numbers were created individually and then added to layers above before using motion and gausian blurs to blend them into the image. All the rigging on the boat was added in Illustrator and then imported as a 'smart objects' layer before flattening and blurring/blending to give it a more painted look.

Anyways, I'm really happy with this one even though it took a long time to get it right. This is probably the fifth or sixth version of the image, earlier versions being black and white, chalk and charcoal and pen and ink.

New revised model posed and printed with a few scribbles to define some shapes and decals on it. Can't seem to get blogger to post much of anything today.

Can't seem to post shit to blogger today.

So using a render of the revised model I start the tracing in Illustrator. I'll print this out to start marking in the decals and details.

If you look at the real T34 theres a small window just in front and below the mirrors so that the driver could see 'those little shopping cart wheels locking up going into a corner' as Scheckter said of them. He apparently didn't like the car.

This is the revised model. The proportions of the T34 are much more complex than the F1 cars of the sixties with their cigar shaped bodies. I think that part of the problem is that you're not used to seeing a car with six wheels and so the shape of the front end can be confusing because you're just not used to seeing something so odd. I simplified the body at the back of the car and increased the size of the radiator as well as lenghtening the cockpit area so that it starts slightly before the front set of wheels. I also reduced the size of the aerodynamic flip-ups that sit in front of the rear tyres. My model is based more on the 1976 version of the T34 as opposed to the more shrouded look of the 1977 version which has a one piece canopy that sits over the frame and roll bar/crash structure behind the driver.

Aero was becoming more and more important in grand prix car design in this period.