Hey everyone, I haven't seen a thread where people could share and discuss their artwork here in one place, so I though that I'd make one. Feel free to upload or link your art here, as I would love to see what people have done to capture the essence of railroading on canvas, sketchbook, etc. With college and other aspects of life keeping me away from enjoying railroading in the model variety, I've decided to give the artistic route a shot. Like many people, I grew up watching Bob Ross' Joy of Painting on PBS, but I've had basically no experience with or desire to work with oil paints, so I've adapted his style and techniques to a digital medium: Photoshop Elements. Below is the end result of my first attempt in the new style, "Morning Mail," featuring DSP&P #71 with a lone combine in tow, just sort of making its way through a generic winter scene. The second picture is just a detail shot to better show what went into making the train itself. Anyone else have original artwork that they would like to share? Cheers, --Tom
I have no skill as an artist, but I think this thread could produce some very interesting results and exhibit talent from our members. I will, in the interest of art, post this shot of a watercolor by Gil Reid, more well known for his Pennsy art. This one is particularly interesting to me in that Gil chose New York Central Hudson 5315 as his subject. 5315 was the only Hudson written off, totaled in a wreck at my home town in 1940. He also seems to have depicted a Southern Railroad PS-1? Pacific, one of their famous engines, passing over the NYC train. Interesting.
We have seen a few folks come and go, who would share art. But they were more looking at the commerical side of what was presented. Not so much the fun/hobby aspect. What grabs me of the art Tom has offered, above, is the smoke plume. That is a very real result. There is some really nice detail in that scene!
Yeah, I figured that the monetary aspect may have hindered threads like this from really growing, but I'm really just in it for the fun and all of the interesting choices that go into a piece of artwork and its composition. The perspective of the two trains crossing over each other and the orange glow from the light source really intrigue me in Gil's painting. Thank you for the encouraging comments! One of the reasons that I really like winter scenes is that the colder air gives smoke a very vivid and stark look with a lot of depth rather than just a hazy flat color. Studying actual smoke and working in layers from dark to light and from background to foreground is what really brought out the feel of the exhaust plume billowing from the stack. I don't know why, but I'm actually a bit more drawn to the subtle bits of smoke trailing from the stovepipes in the combine. It's the little things that really make a scene. Cheers, --Tom
So after several months of drudging through this thing called the fall academic quarter, I got around to another one, featuring some more Colorado narrow gauge:
Don't know if it was intentional, but around the base of the mountains looks a lot like morning mist. And as Ken said, makes me think of walking out and looking West!
Neat stuff Tom , you may have found a niche that , if it prints as good as it looks in HD !!! Thanks for sharing another facet of the hobby / life on the rails ! via fotoshop ....
That's precisely what I was going for. Bob Ross always makes the bottom of his mountains less distinct than the peaks, because things like mist have the tendency to break up and diffuse light. This is actually the video that I referenced for how to apply his techniques to Photoshop: [video=youtube;w2nFIWIpAA0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2nFIWIpAA0[/video]
This is not exactly art, just LightWave 3D renderings I created quite some years back to help plan my layout. Which is now under construction. Sort of. Very slowly.
