The Ralph McQuarrie Challenge

[TwoBrainedCylon]

My artistic bug has been dormant for about 14 months now. I may be alone but I think there's been a distinct lack of artwork produced for the original Galactica series. I recall in 2001-2003 when a number of folks were cranking things out at a pretty good pace. It seems that both GINO and real life has sucked much of the fire out of the original series.



EDIT: Update added to show progress




I'm throwing down the gauntlet to my fellow fans.

I intend to do a hi-res version of the above and of this:




I challenge the rest of the fanbase to do the same with the other pre-production artwork.

The process is quite simple. I don't think it involves a lot of talent because I don't have a lot myself. I have knowledge of how to do Photoshop but that differs from actual drawing talent. In other words, if I can do it, so can the rest of you.

1. Resize the jpeg to 2400x2400. If its a mis-size, like the above, I ensure that the smaller side is 2400 and the larger is whatever size it turns out to be.

2. Duplicate the layer several times and use the top layer as your working layer.

3. Zoom in to 200%.

4. Find a spot and start drawing over the image with a brush about 15 pixels wide, soft brush, using the "mixer brush tool". I find the "very wet, heavy mix" to work quite well. Make sure your brush strokes go with the flow of the shape of what you're drawing over. This creates brush patterns that build on the painting look.

5. If you screw up a section, copy it from a layer below and start over.

6. Progress from the darker regions to the lighter regions. Paint along the flow of colors rather than against them.

7. To amplify areas, start a new layer and paint on it. Shift the opacity as needed to gain the right effect.

8. Stop and do something else when it seems like its becoming a chore.

9. If you get totally stuck, E-mail me at SpaceCoastSandy@Yahoo.com .

10. Have fun with it.

Anyone want to get back to the core of why we fell in love with Battlestar Galactica in the first place?


All my best,



Russell

[TwoBrainedCylon]

Update on the progress on this painting. (Doing a little each day).



All my best,


Russell

[martok2112]

Nice job smoothing out the details there, Russell. Very nice indeed.

[TwoBrainedCylon]

Thank you, my friend.

I've started having to do some painting to make it work. Got most of the baseline down now.



All my best,


Russell

[martok2112]

Simply amazing. It's like remastering old film for hi-def. It's really looking great.

Oh, hey, stop by some of my model threads, and you'll see I've actually entered the realm of 3D modeling and animation. Hope you'll like what you see there.

Keep up the great work, my friend.

[TwoBrainedCylon]

Than you. Most kind.

I'll check out the models and comment there. Great to see you've dove into that black hole of computer modeling and animation. Its fun and frustrating and dreadfully addictive.

The most prominent thing George Lucas ever said was that no film is ever finished -- its only abandoned.

Likewise, I've come to the point of abandoning this painting rework.

Made lots of mistakes on the way, the most important of which is that the process I described above doesn't really work. It injects too much noise color into the entire image. Its far easier to just paint over the picture and not mess with the mixture.

I'll be doing that on the next one.

At a minimum, I learned bunches going through this and enjoyed the Hell out of the painting process.

Hopefully, I'll get the hang of it with a few more tries. Overall, I'm pleased with it as a first attempt.



If anyone wants the full-sized image, you can grab it here: Full Sized

If you want the version without any of the camera blurring, you can grab it here: Without blur effect

It looks like this.



Just for fun, -- here's the before and after:



All my best,


Russell

[peter noble]

That's really turned out great.

It did occur to me that you could have cg'd moving stars outside the cockpit and animated the Cylons' eye scanners and maybe add some dialogue from Baltar in the Raider from Living Legend.

I was doing some similar things a while back, you can check it out here:

https://www.colonialfleets.com/forums...ad.php?t=17881

Not sure when I'll get back to it. But I will...eventually.

[TwoBrainedCylon]

JJ,

That video is totally freaking cool!!!

Please contact me offline (SpaceCoastSandy@Yahoo.com). I want to ask you some questions about your video.

All my best,


Russell

[TwoBrainedCylon]

I started the RMQ dogfight painting.



Trying out the straight painting technique this time around to avoid a lot of hassles from the Baltar's Betrayal conversion. Not sure how this one is going to work but its digital so the worst I can do is waste my time.



I've already discovered that I'm overdoing the details on the raider. When you look at the normal view, even at 6000 x 6000, you can't make out most of what I tried to put in there. The raider is a special problem because it seems, looking at the spotty image I have to go on, that RMQ tried to draw three different designs for the raider and ended up with a fusion. The perspectives of some of the individual components seems off, as if he originally was trying something different. The windows in particular seem to be the worst, with them not aligning with the rest of the cockpit whatsoever. In the image, this is hidden in that its a lot of light grey but I've stumbled over getting this to work as he's drawn it.

If anyone has a hi-res of this painting, I'd appreciate it.

FWIW, here's the progress on the raider so far.



All my best,


Russell

[gmd3d]

This is the best one I have

[TwoBrainedCylon]

Well, this is curious.

I located another reference, -- larger than the alternate I was using but of the same painting -- which seems to be a different painting than the icon I left up and the larger you just posted.

To compare the two:



It seems that I've been working from an earlier concept in which the bottom of the raider had machinery and tubes running across it. At least that's what a lot of it looks like to me. The top is ribbed and the underside of the nose has some sort of tri-machinery thing going on.

The version you posted has a smooth cockpit hull, no flared Valkarie wings, and is pretty close to the final version used in the series. Its smooth and high tech, whereas the version I was working is clunky and more in line with the Baltar image above. Also looks like the version you posted has dual intakes underneath where the one I was working seems to have a flat, single intake.

Anyone else seeing the same thing?


All my best,


Russell

[TwoBrainedCylon]

Interesting.

Until I figure out a better approach, I've opted for a fusion of the two.



It breaks convention and I'm hesitant to mess with the master's stuff but it seems that there is a good unity between the two drawings that I just stumbled upon while deleting PhotoShop layers.

The only real alteration here is not having the upper intakes/guns/tube things that are in each side of the cockpit but the change in the entire look of the raider is quite striking. To me, it fits entirely with the Cylons shown in the Baltar's Betrayal painting as it implies a more functional, mechanic look. That's saying a lot as the raider was always a very functional looking machine as it was. The difference is that if this were a CG model, the parts inside would turn and the wings would shift a bit, like a scaled down Klingon Bird of Prey. I still can't get over the forward tilted cockpit but I'm not prepared totally abandon the essentials of the painting.

Comments? Concerns?

If needed, I can paint over with boring paneling.


All my best,

Russell

[gmd3d]

I like this approach you going for now.

no real comments apart I am looking forward to seen some more

[Titon]

Looks great Russell!

Long time no see. Hope all is well....

[TwoBrainedCylon]

Thanks for the find, Peter. Interesting stuff.

Not much progress today. I fixed a lot of geometry and some spacing that was wrong in the original painting. Not sure I have it right now but given its a smaller element, covered up by laser fire, I'm not going to burn up much more time on it.

I also enlarged the intakes as it didn't seem feasible that the raider could keep up with a viper with the heavy engines without having some kind of horsepower under the hood. The alternate is that the Cylon tech was so far advanced that they didn't need the larger engines but that didn't go with the idea of a fighter that had heavy tubes hanging from under its wings.

I still really dislike the forward leaning cockpit I shifted it a bit so that it might fool the eye without totally abandoning the original portrayal. I rationalize it in that this is now only a partially "re-imagined" RMQ concept raider.



All my best,


Russell

[CBSG4ever]

Hello Sandy,
I like what you are doing here. Keep up the great work. It's interesting to see the work as it progresses. Patiently waiting to see the finished product.

[BST]

You'll notice this thread a bit lighter than before. The posts about Boris Vallejo, Frank Frazetta, etc have been split out to a new thread, in order to continue that particular conversaton.

[gmd3d]

Yeah.. I was thinking it was derailing on Sandy´s work