Mannock's Nieuport composition

[Chock]

The standard Aldis sight did indeed not have any magnification, but the original 1915 version (made by Aldis Brothers of Birmingham) did magnify the view (featuring x3 magnification). That version was the one originally evaluated at Martlesham Heath by sticking it on a BE2 with a Lewis gun. It was indeed proved to be more accurate than the ring and bead site, however, an early pointer to the problems it could cause was the fact that more than one of the test pilots almost flew into the ground whilst using it (they were testing it by firing at ground targets). Having determined that, the tests went on to evaluating it in the air, and it was at that point that it was determined the magnification factor was unhelpful and that it was a good sight, so the ones later produced en masse did not feature magnification, but instead had graticule markings for range finding and deflection. 200 of these were ordered from Aldis. Another problem was that it oiled up, easily, so a subsequent modification was a flip up front cover, much like you find on telescopic rifle sights these days, which was operated from the cockpit by Bowden cable.

It eventually evolved into what might be regarded as the 'standard' Aldis sight, being just short of two feet long (22 inches) and in there were four collimating lenses with an inert gas inside the tube. The actual sight picture had two rings on it, one of which was matched to indicate the wingspan of a Gotha twin engined bomber at 200 yards, which gives one an idea of the sort of ranges you could expect to start firing with an Aldis sight. The inner circle was supposed to assist deflection shooting, when compared with the position of crossing targets at 100 mph touching the outer ring marking. Although it did have a rubber eyepiece, it was usable when the eye was placed about 5 inches away from the lens, which gives you a 20 degree field of view.

Al

[Chock]

Slight increase in dihedral to make it look right. I think the raised aileron is always going to make the dihedral of the port wing look less than it really is with the gap at the wingtip looking larger because of that, so I've also exaggerated the splay of the left aileron even though it is of course very foreshortened when viewed edge-on. The other alternative is to roll the ailerons the other way, which I might try




Al

[Tim West]

.....lol, not much time to post but I wanted to say "I really like the comp Al"

There's a nice flow about it.


carry on

[Chock]

Glad you like it. I do too which is why I decided to crack on with it as it is with that tweak to the dihedral. So it was time to start slapping paint on:



For anyone who is curious about the methodology apparent in that initial first bit of paint: Being that I work in the traditional manner with oil paints (i.e the one that takes fecking ages but usually ends up looking better), I've started putting the base tones on for the distant sky. For those who are not familiar with this old fashioned method, you build the colours in a slow methodical fashion so that the layers underneath project through to the thinner coloured glazes over the top, a technique which allows you to control the depth at which objects appear to be. This is sometimes called fat over lean, referring to the different amounts of linseed oil you mix in to the paint at various stages.

So the dark blue sky underpainting emulates the azure of deep space zipping through the particles in the atmosphere, which in the real world absorb it and make things look lighter but also bounce the long wavelengths of blue light around. This is why the blue paint of the sky is extending down into the land so far, since it will be used to produce the tonal shift of the green surface of the land as it recedes into the haze which also bounces the blue light waves around. Since blue light has a different wavelength to the orange/red colours of the sun, you have to use a different technique for the aeroplane up in the sky, which is stopping the sunlight as it hits it and shines through the doped canvas. Doing that is what will visually project it into nearer space, then with fairly solid colours on the aircraft cockpit up close, that should put it right in the foreground in terms of lighting.

All this differing underpainting malarkey is what the poncy art critics are talking about when they start banging on about 'the light' in a painting. Using this technique does mean you have to do weird stuff such as painting green under the flesh tones of skin on the highlights to neutralise reds and make it look like flesh has both bone as well as blood underneath it in the veins and muscles (a treatment the figure in the foreground will get), but it does end up with things having more depth and realism. The more modern method (which I'm not using here, but is more practical when doing stuff commercially, since it is quicker) is to mix the colours live on the canvas, which is speedier, but more akin to the techniques you tend to use with acrylics rather than oils, and of course the result is often fraught with difficulties, since you pretty much have to get it right first time, if you are to avoid having to overpaint things to correct them.

Al

[Chock]

Underpainting for terrain:



Al

[Chock]

A bit more pre-shading for the terrain and a few other bits and pieces, as you can tell, doing it this way is slooooow:



Al

[Chock]

Last tweak to the base colours before detail starts going on, a wash of titanium white mixed with lots of linseed oil to blend the blue with the green at the horizon and create the distant cirrostratus layer with the blue of space coming through it, when this dries, I can start painting properly at last:



Al

[Chock]

Finally, the diluted wash was dry enough for me to proceed, so I started adding the thermal streeting of the clouds and the inversion layer:



Unfortunately, the camera flash picked up a fair bit of reflection, but hopefully you can see enough.

This is an interesting sky required for the picture, since the actual event I am depicting took place in mid to late August. Coincidentally, that time of year was when I made my first ever solo flight, and I had been flying my ass off for the previous two days before I made that, so I well remember the skies at that time of year in Europe; it is generally sunny, but the heat kicks up a lot of thermals that turn into long streets of cumulous clouds which, if they can break through the inversion layer, always seem to have the potential to cause summer rain and occasionally thunder and lightning. With the military theme of the picture, the threatening clouds and murky inversion layer over the distant front, where the Nieuports will have to retreat to, kind of suits the mood, so I'm hoping to pull that feeling off.

It's always tempting to fiddle too much at this stage, so instead, I stopped to take a snap and make this post!

Al

[Ginger.]

Now it's really starting to take shape, like the poppy on the easel... good 'un Chock, you're like a breath of fresh air to the Squadron.

[Russell Smith]

Nice job on the clouds Chock.