Looking for Kitplane Photos

[s10sakota]

I have become 'addicted' to my new art of making aircraft illustrations. I grew up building hundreds of plastic model airplanes and I always tried to make them as detailed as possible. I'm not much into building models anymore, but making these illustrations on the computer gives me the same satisfaction of building a highly detailed model.

I learned this art form by coloring in any 3-view side profile drawing I could find on the web. That was ok, but I've found that I can make these much more detailed and much more accurate by starting out with a photograph.

I drew my RANS S-6S by first taking a photo of it. Notice how different the two photos are below...


http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n7/marky613/Forum Pics/s61.png

This picture was taken at close range and as you can see, the wing is way out of perspective because from being too close with the camera.

Now look at this picture...

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n7/marky613/Forum Pics/s62.png

It's pretty much the same picture but I took this one from about 300 feet away with full (optical only) zoom on my camera.

This is the exact photo I used to draw my S-6S illustration below...

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n7/marky613/Forum Pics/Print2.png

My interests in aviation are mostly wtih homebuilts. I've built two RANS airplanes, but I'm really interested in all homebuilts. I would love to draw the RV's, Sonex's, Kitfoxes, Pitts, etc...

Since I can't travel all over the country taking photos, I'd like to ask for your help in getting me a useable photo. Do you have a kitplane you can take a photo of?

Below are the requirements for the photo. ANd please understand-every step is extremely important!

1. Take the photo from 200-300 feet away, zoom in (with optical zoom only) until the plane fills the screen. This keeps the wing in perspactive.
2. Make sure the sun is on the camera side of the plane-preferrable so the wing shadow is facing aft.
3. Take the photo at the highest quality setting-at least 14 megapixels
4. Here's the tricky part-the camera needs to be positioned perfectly! The camera can't be to high, to far forward, backward, low, etc... Use my picture as an example. We are looking for the most perfect side profile shot possible. Notice on my photo that the right gear leg and wheel pant is nearly perfectly behind the left one. Also notice that the right wing strut is almost perfectly behind the left one. The camera isn't too high and the camera isn't too low. The back of the spinner should appear nearly straight and not curved.
5. Once you download your photo from your camera to your computer, it will be about 5-6 megabites. Keep it this large when you send it!
6. The plane should be facing to the left like in the photo above!
7. Level all control surfaces. (notice I forgot to do this in my photo above).
8. Please position the prop so that one of the blades is pointing straight to the camera. In other words, the left blade should be level.

If I use your picture, I'll put your paint scheme on the plane. Eventually I'd like to post these on a Facebook page or a website.

I'm looking forward to seeing what I get!!!

Thanks everyone.

Send photos to s10sakota at yahoo dot com

Here's some examples of planes I've done so far...

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n7/marky613/Forum Pics/Print1.png

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n7/marky613/Forum Pics/Print3.png

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n7/marky613/Forum Pics/RANS7_Big1.png