"Felix the Cat's First Grumman"

 This is a WIP of a profile of the first Grumman fighter used by VF-3, now known as VF-31 and the last Navy squadron to fly the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, the last Grumman Navy fighter.



The images on the right are clickable to expand.


 

This is a drawing done in Photoshop, using 3 sets of  3 views and
combining the best parts of each after referring to photos.

I imported the drawing into Xara Extreme and did a vector version to make the lines more precise than the raster version.

I moved the drawing to Corel Draw and added lots of rivet detail and refined some of the other details of the aircraft after referring to the photos once again.

Now the F3F-1 has been imported back to Photoshop and the basic colors have been added.  Much more work is to come.

The drawing still wasn't quite right, so I changed the rudder and a couple of other areas.  The VF-31 Felix emblem didn't satisfy me, so I redid it using an old photo of the actual aircraft as a reference.
Started adding modeling to the tail and fuselage using the airbrush tool.

Lots of airbrushing to give a 3D appearance.  Added a pilot and spinning propellor.  I've added a blue background more in keeping with an "in flight" profile.

Made some final refinements and a few small changes.  All that's left to do is add some text with historical details and maybe squadron insignia.

The squadron CO also occasionally flew this a/c as you can see here.  He was very popular except for some grumbling about the litter box.

The Section Leader of the 3rd Section of VF-3 flyng in formation with the 3rd plane of his section.

Here's the final profile, with text, background and a small shot of the USS Saratoga added.  Ready for prints to be run.