I will say that shot of the Gemballa that you used is pretty nice.

I hope you'll pardon my being frank, maybe call it constructive criticism, but I don't feel this one has the same..."stuff" that your other pictures have had so far. I don't know if it's maybe just the resolution of the smaller picture that's throwing it off, but it just doesn't seem the same to me.

This was an exercise in shading and that is what I meant by doing it to see if I could do it. Actually the race cars with the sponsors and stuff all over them are easier in some ways than just straight shading. I am learning as I go.

In this case the printed piece looks better than the jpeg on the web. I think one of the things throwing it off is that the blacks are not very dark on the web version. This is due to technical reasons because I design everything in CMYK for printing and then convert to RGB for the web.

Also this is a 20"x30" original and they tend to lose a lot of detail at the tiny 600 pixel wide size I display here. It is interesting how some look better smaller and others look better larger.

I am going to have to take a break from these for a week or so, I have a motor I have to pull and rebuild on a Mercedes and I am over the cold I had so back to it for me.

Here is a bit more detail in this sample but this is still no where near the actual size of the piece.

I see, and you're definitely right. Getting a bit closer and larger with the thumbnail made the difference.

I have set up a "print on demand" store for for Tee shirts and stuff here ...Eurosport US Store - Printfection.com

I have researched several of the apparel Print On Demand (POD) places and Printastic has the best reputation for high quality products as well as high quality customer service. The shirts I have chosen are Hanes Cool-Dri which are moisture wicking modern fabric short sleeve Tees and also 100% organic cotton long sleeve tees. There are mugs and steins as well. I have tried to make the prices reasonable and to this end I am adding only $5 per tee for my efforts, the rest is for the printers.

Printastic uses state of the art DTG "Direct to garment" screener/printers that are super high quality and run $200k a piece, they have eight of them total in three locations across the country.

In other news, I have created and am currently waiting on the samples of a calendar featuring the illustrations that you have seen on here. It will be a 12 month 2012 calendar featuring a different illustration each month and one on the cover for a baker's dozen. I have put all of the American Le Mans series races on the calendar as well as the Le Mans Test day and Le Mans dates for your convenience. I will let you know the details of this when I have received the samples.

Also as I promised I will begin selling limited edition prints around the first of the year. The art will be more expensive due to the high quality of the output and of course you will want to have it framed so if you cannot swing the cost of a limited edition print for the wall then you can have a ball cap or calendar to enjoy.

Nice! :cheers:

Also I learned something new today that I thought I might share.

PNG files do not have image compression built in to them so you do not get the artifacts that come along with JPG compression. Also PNG files will show gradients without banding which is a problem for JPG files.

Overdrive commented on the Gemballa thumbnail that I posted and so I am using it as an example to show the difference between the two file types quality. Both file types are used by browsers.

The Porsche 962 for your enjoyment.

The 1969 Monte Carlo Rally winning Porsche 911

A cool poster that Porsche produced after the win in monte Carlo in 1969

http://www.vpracing.com/Poster_Archives/1960/69051l.jpg

Currently working on the most challenging project I could find and that is the BMW 2011 Dean Koonz art car. After 17 porsches in a row, I needed a change of pace. Will post it when I am finished.

Just got the calendar proofs back and they look really good. They are 8.5x11 landscape closed and 11x17 portrait when open. They have all the holidays as well as the ALMS and Le Mans dates on them. I am ordering more for sale and will let you all know pricing and dates they will be available. I should get them after Christmas and before the New Year.

Also in the photo is an example of an 11x17 signed print and a 20x30 metallic print.

http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1323793312.jpg

Here is the 2011 BMW Art Car and Le Mans entry

Currently working on last years LMP2 Oreca Signatech Nissan to give to Lucas Ordoñez. He is the very nice fellow that won the Playstation Grand Tourismo contest and then went on to Nissan GT academy and was invited to drive full time for Nissan in LMP2. From gamer to Le Mans racer in a year and as down to earth as they come.

Beautiful and striking work. Will look at your pricing when you release it. Have you considered the Boxster concept car. The silver and red colors and your stylization would be awesome. Merry Christmas.

Thank you for the compliment. Are you talking about the boxster in the spy shots? IM me with a URL of the car you are suggesting and I will look at it.

Here is the Signatech Nissan LMP2 car that won P2 at Zuhai in the last ILMC race.

I wonder if he's talking about the original concept car from back in the 90s that brought us the Boxster?

At the request of folks here on this board I have now made the calendars available for order from Lulu.com. The calendars are 11x17 when opened and printed on high quality stock with 13 of my Porsche illustrations and all of the ALMS and Le Mans events marked as well as regular holidays. The 2012 Illustrated Porsche Calendar is available for $18.75and is printed and shipped directly to you. I have used Lulu in the past and their service and quality is excellent.

I got the first set of proofs from Vistaprints and the quality was good but the service was not and the website is one of those pushy ones that tries to get you to buy sixty different things and charges you for crap like "upload fees" which is total BS. So I went back and reformatted everything so that I could use Lulu because I know and trust them and their prices are better to boot.

2012 Illustrated Porsche Calendar by Scott Smith in Cars

Cool!

To keep the Porsche AG legal department off your butt, you should probably put copyright and trademark logos on the words "Porsche" and "Carrera" (etc.) and note on the calendar artwork that these are registered trademarks of Porsche and that you have no affiliation with them.

This statement was made because I couldn't tell if you had already done this or not with the tiny lulu preview of the calendar. If you've done it, never mind!

Even with this legal disclaimer on the calendar, they still might come after you, but at least you've made an attempt to distance yourself from their name.

Thanks for the suggestion. I hope not to receive a cease and desist order from Atlanta or Germany but I have looked at a lot of other Porsche related art work and have not seen disclaimers where a personally produced drawing or sketch was involved. Any profits derived from the sale of these items is being reinvested with porsche anyway so it might be self defeating for them to stop the process!

It's not the drawings they will have a problem with. It's the use of their company and car names.

Not to add onto the dogpile, but I would also be wary of the owners of the original photographs from which the illustrations were developed. Too many greedy money-hungry types out there ready to slap cease and desist on anyone and everyone they can.

I am sure as this progresses I will work from more and more from my own photos but it is fairly hard to go back and shoot historic moments and many of the shots I use are promotional photos are for all intent and purposes in the public domain. They are disseminated to promote the brand and not as an object of work unto themselves.

I think I have a decent argument that I am in fact creating new intellectual property because I am adding details that are not discernible in the photographs. There is a surprising amount of checking and cross referencing that goes on with each image. I usually don't do stuff with only one angle, I want two or three because the tiny logo on the rear quarter panel in the photo is a pixelated mess and I have to draw it precisely because you cant blur vector lines. So there is a lot that I add to the thing to make it what it is. If I used a program to convert the base image to a piece of automated art then I could see the argument but that is not the case.
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1324416919.jpg
http://986forum.com/forums/uploads01...1324416930.jpg
Also as part of the process I have to re-create all of the logos and lettering which can be more time consuming than actually drawing the cars. After having owned an advertising agency I get into corporate identity as much as the making of the car. Each car is a moment in technology and advertising that then transcends into art and history if the performance is good enough. It is a nexus of public performance and in that sense the resulting exterior of the car is made to be consumed by as many as will see it, so my work is more along the lines of Warhol's Campbell's soup cans.

Anyway I have spent far more money to get here than I have made or will make. I do this because I like to do it not because I think I might make money at it. I set up the t-shirts because I wanted a t-shirt and I made a calendar because I wanted a calendar.

...and because you had the slightest feeling some of us might want a shirt/mug/calendar, too, right? :D

Hey, seeing your preparation for any potential argument on the matter I feel better about it. You certainly know more about it than I do, and either way it's still impressive stuff and worth some recognition.

Why thank you O/D!

I just received my T-shirt sample today, they are really nice. I ordered the basic Tee to see the quality and they are made by Gildan (Gildan Ultra Cotton on the Label), they are a nice weight and seem to be well made.

I got both sides printed to see how much coverage and what kind of colors and detail I would get and I must say that the colors are accurate, the detail is just as if it was printed on my HP here at my desk and it appears to be a durable process that will hold up well to washing.

I will snap a pic or two when I get the chance.

Lucas Ordonez loves the Signatech Nissan illustration and I am sending him one to put on his wall. Too bad I can't deliver it personally to Spain!

That's awesome, and some really good exposure for you. What better endorsement does one need for their work?

The new 2012 Calendars from Lulu came in and they are perfect. Better than the Vistaprints samples and a whole lot easier to deal with and less expensive too!

2012 Illustrated Porsche Calendar by Scott Smith in Cars

I think someone would be a great candidate to design a new 986forum banner logo.
Being that we have new ownership.

p.s.
Please do the Boxster Concept car. Can't believe it will be going on 19 years.

I will state that no other Porsche concept has aged better.

http://thegarageblog.com/garage/wp-content/uploads/porsche-museum-opening.jpg

http://www.carlustblog.com/images/20...erconcept2.jpg

If we can find a nice hero image that is 1500 pixels or more in size (the bigger the better) plus a couple of other shots from different angles I bet it could be done!

Here is the latest, the 2011 Audi R18 that won the 24 Hours of Le mans in the epic one against the crowd battle after McNish's and Rockenfeller's accidents. I took the picture at Petit Le Mans and just finished the illustration.