P40 cockpit Project,

People who know I've been building this have been asking to see how I built the (very notional) Curtiss P40 cockpit rear intend to use in some of my stories.  Well, here it is....

102421_0076 by Gary  Menten, on Flickr

Cockpit rear with Laura


It doesn't look like much, does it?  

But when extracted from the background using Photoshop and inserted into 3D render like the one below.....

10b by
Gary  Menten, on Flickr



It actually ends up looking like this....

Laura_1 by
Gary  Menten, on Flickr


And for my money, the composite ends up looking a whole load better than in previously created images where photographed the figure in front of my computer screen.

If you're tempted to ask why bother building the cockpit at all and why not just do a figure extraction and paste just the figure into the render, the answer is that it is a whole lot easier and faster to do an extraction of the whole cockpit rear including the figure than it is to do just the figure as the fuselage of the aircraft is constitutes a series of smooth lines, some straight, some curved where as the figure with its complex pose, and worst of all, it's hair would take significant amounts of time to extract from background.

Please feel free to ask my any questions you might have about how I built or or the materials used.

Did you have to measure and construct the shape of the backing panel to match a pre-existing cockpit shape from the 3D rendering software? Or are you able to "construct" the 3D digital parts around the physical section?

What I did was to take the DAZ render and open it in Photoshop where they dimensions could be altered at will.  Then I placed a figure in front of the screen and altered the dimensions until they looked right. I printed them to the same size, then cut them out to use as templates for marking and cutting the sheet plastic.

When doing the composite however, it's the part with the cockpit rear and pilot that is expanded or contracted to fit into the pre-existing image.

Well done Gary!
Must admit I do admire "builds" over straight out Photoshopping.
Reminds me so much of the way they did the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon in "A New Hope".

LeStryge wrote:

Well done Gary!
Must admit I do admire "builds" over straight out Photoshopping.
Reminds me so much of the way they did the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon in "A New Hope".

Thanks. It's not much of a build really; only as much as needs to be and it's only purpose is to facilitate the production of large numbers of images.

Kimono Troop Command wrote:

When doing the composite however, it's the part with the cockpit rear and pilot that is expanded or contracted to fit into the pre-existing image.

Right - and that's why was wondering if you had to match the shape (rather than actual dimensions) of the physical construction to that of the digital version. I did not clearly convey what I was wondering about in my initial question. Printing out the digital version as a template makes sense.

Just the dimensions

Amazing work Gary, and it looks so good when added in the 3D render. Top work indeed