Shipbucket

Changes have been made as requested. In regards to the refuelling probe, only the arm bracket itself is separate from the fuselage (not the fuel line conduit - https://live.staticflickr.com/4872/4694 ... c929_b.jpg).

I understand that the need to keep everything within the style, just that perhaps there should be more leeway when it comes to things like black outlines for control surfaces, doors, and canopies (not arguing at all with the outlining, nor black outing anything with air behind).

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Currently working on:
- AU Royal Navy
- Various FD scale aircraft

Cheers. Nice to get compliments from some forum big names

In regards to the stylistic/black lines tête-à-tête, surely everything on an aircraft's fuselage is proud (I agree that air behind makes sense)? Does every rivet, panel line, and hatch require black outlines also? I just think it's a harsh and over simplistic blanket policy, that's all. But I'm willing to respect the requests of influential and experienced forum members like Eswube and yourself and edit any uploaded drawings accordingly.

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Currently working on:
- AU Royal Navy
- Various FD scale aircraft

It's not North Korea, but it does remind me of a Home Owner's Association in terms of boredom and busy-bodies. Talented artists are being pushed away because of the passive-aggressive enforcement of deeply antiquated rules for the sake of enforcing rules. If it makes one feel powerful in this puny little realm on the internet, so be it. But don't act like these newer artists aren't doing amazing work by taking some artistic liberties with "da rules" and having the courage to share their work. Either we loosen up on the geriatric style enforcement (which proper FD style looks awful compared to what we can do now, imo), or prepare for the inevitable decay of this board, as is already happening.

The old style is boring and uninspired over a decade later. There are new artists with all kinds of neat ideas I want to see, but I never will if they're being gatekept to an asinine degree.

If we're talking solutions, can we perhaps create a new scale? Something like FDX and SBX scale?

Being a relative beginner and unknown I do hate to rock the boat (pun intended) here, but I completly agree. As stated earlier, I get the need for a uniform and consistent style but said stylistic rules are heavily outdated and have been superseded by new artists and styles who are seemingly punished for being willing to try different, more advanced and higher quality stylistic techniques. You are 100% correct that "original" FD drawn "by the rules" looks decidedly lower quality and basic than what can be achieved today, and that these overly enforced and boring blanket rules limit what artists can achieve with FD and is perhaps a contributing factor in the wider decline of the SB forum. Literally just open the "rules" to more stylistic licence when it comes to advanced techniques and get rid of blanket rules on things like black lines, outline colours, and detailing/exaggeration rules!

That said, I disagree with creating a schism with a new scale - separatism and divide solves nothing and this forum already has enough non-official SB scales. It would also be impossible to dethrone the "official" FD scale (even though "FDX" has a nice ring to it) given the small number of artists who draw FD in such a style, let alone those who upload at a high enough output to keep such a scale alive and popular. I do however completely agree that this passive aggressive over-enforcement of outdated rules by a select few needs to end. It may give an ego boost to the autocratic forum members (who's experience and work I still respect and admire) who enforce such "rules" but it only serves to alienate and drive away newer artists who are willing to experiment and push the stylistic boundaries of what can be achieved with FD scale.

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Currently working on:
- AU Royal Navy
- Various FD scale aircraft

Breaking my radio silence to chime in on what Eswube had been calling out recently...

I think this conversation (was planning to bring this up on the Falklands attack jet challenge) might just be the best time to reflect upon the current direction of Shipbucket's content creation. As much as SB needs to grow, improve, and evolve (with the most notable "improvements" being the more drab paint palettes and—eventually—more drab window colors), we all have to face the following realization, head on: have we, for the most part, really gone that far and astray from the firmly canonical standards of SB, with all that "outside the box/comfort zone" mindset, in the name of aesthetics and change? Did such idealism built a slippery slope for SB to become largely a shadow of its former self? And what kind of example are we truly setting to the newer, up-and-coming users who naturally look up to design trends set by more established ones?

At risk of being called out for usurping forum authority, I think that the more-or-less concrete solution to this situation... is some serious shake-up on how the community as a whole perceives and handles this new generation of content; that any instance of experimentation would have to go through the funneling filter of due process and consensus before being put into official, mainstream acceptance; and that what has been already accepted would have to be reassessed. That way, there would be at least some modicum of clarity and organization in the sea of differing styles and trends.

cheers—wb21

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>"Wow, if I wasn't a hardened killing machine, that mightta hurt..." —SSgt. John Lugo (1st SFOD-D), Spec Ops: The Line

Keep in mind that the shading rules do exist to keep the style uniform. If you no longer can use components of the parts library or sections of existing drawings for reference, artists have to draw everything from scratch...... something very possible, there are artists who do just that, but we do not upload those artworks to our archive that is meant to be comparable in style and standards.

The shipbucket and FD style have evolved over time, allowing more individual freedom, but the core of the style (the black outlines for anything that sticks out, the no gradients rule, the crediting rules, the exact scales we use) are the very core of what shipbucket is about, and it is important to keep that intact. This has nothing to do with autocracy or ego boosts.

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

Why should shipbucket to grow and improve? We are a community of people who are having fun drawing stuff, gathering knowledge, teaching each other, using each others work to create new stuff..... We still get our fair share of new people (sometimes more then we can properly handle on the discord, resulting in some senior shipbucket artists not wanting to be active "in that mess") even while we are not focussed on "growing and improving" shipbucket.

If you look at the shipbucket components sheets, you can definitely see shipbucket is not at an standstill. Without changing the style rules the shipbucket style has evolved over time, allowing for more potential freedom in stuff like shading, detailing, etc. The standard window colour that we used to use no longer fitted the more accurate colour schemes that were possible due to the internet providing more references then were ever available back when shipbucket started. HOWEVER! If a component was drawn 10 years ago, and I would past it on an existing drawing, colour correcting it and possibly adding some minor shading, it would not look wrong or mismatch with the "new, modern" drawing style. And that simple fact is very important, otherwise with every "evolution" the example drawings and part sheets would all have to be redrawn/modified. We have thousands of components available and thousands of drawings have been made, so let's not do that.

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

Regarding the F-5's and the black lines.

On the F-5, 2 shapes flow into each other. The engines, air intakes and the channel between them are a wide "box" while the main hull with the nosecone, cockpit, spine and flowing into the tailfin is a tall "box".

Looking at the cross sections of the aircraft in the below image: the wide box is sticking out on both sides of the tall box, with a clear defining line between them (on most cross sections this is even a hard near 90 degree chine, except for cross section G)

To represent this, similar to the skegs of ships, you need a black outline. There is a "top" of the wide box that is a clear separate part of the spine area. (See the purple lines I drew on the cross sections)


So in my opinion there should be a black outline between the air intake all the way to the engine nozzles. There might be some variation between other F-5 variants then the N-156-F pictured here, and I could be accepting of a grey line in the area of the more gradual shape of cross section G (although I would personally still use black there as there is a "top" which is horizontal) but the tiny amount forwards and the weird "only the part that is a different metal" is just not representing the real aircraft properly

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

I would love to hear examples of the decay of this board happening.

_________________
Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

I think we need to face facts. Although the original SB styles and drawings are the groundwork on which this entire forum and community is built, no one can deny that the original drawings are basic and uninspired and this reflects in the stylistic rules and guidelines that have remained unchanged for over a decade. New artists have come to this platform and with them have come new styles that vastly improve the quality of SB drawings (both in SB and FD), even if they push the stylistic boundaries of what the original creators wrote all those years ago. Yes, maybe Shipbucket is a shadow of what it was in 2008, but can you really disagree that what it is today is not an improvement? You decry "drab paint palettes" and "drab window colors" but are these not far more accurate and higher quality than the incredibly over-saturated colours and bright blue windows of earlier drawings?

I think all artists on here follow a similar path - we all start with the most basic of drawings (basic over-saturated 5 colour palettes, bright blue windows, use of partsheets, heavy use of black lines, little to no advanced visuals etc.) inspired by the "original" SB artists, but we all advance over time and take inspiration from other (often newer) artists to form our own styles. Is the example you really want to set to new artists "don't pursue advanced, high quality drawing styles, instead stick to the extremely basic styles we were using over a decade ago when this drawing was in its infancy"? It alienates newer users who are willing to experiment and push the boundaries of what can be achieved with the format.

At the risk of sounding like an idealistic libertarian, is the solution not less governance and assessment? Surly vigorous "due process and consensus" and reassessment is just going to further alienate those willing to push the boundaries of the format and its outdated stylistic rules with even more advanced and higher quality drawings? If the current moderators and forum leaders are anything to go by surely the only due process and consensus from them would be to throw out anything that doesn't conform to their basic, boring, and uninspired near 15 year old rules and regulations?

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Currently working on:
- AU Royal Navy
- Various FD scale aircraft