B-17 Then and Now - Part 2

After accepting my own challenge to turn an image of a parked B-17 bomber with a crowd of people in front of her into the same plane flying a combat mission, the most challenging thing I faced was how to reconstruct the bottom of the plane.

The first thing I did, however, was to select a different sky from pictures that I had already taken.

This sky was chosen because it had dark clouds as well as blue sky to account for sunlight hitting the plane and the light is coming from the same direction as in the original image

 

I then cut the plane out and layered it on top of the sky. I separated three of the engine props, applied a radial blur and layered theme back in place. The forth prop was left in a stopped position. I wanted to show some battle damage and this engine was going to be a casualty.

Cut out plane layered over the sky. 3 props blurred and rotated slightly (right wing tip readied for damage)

To reconstruct the bomb bay doors, the rear section, and the landing gear in the up position, I bought a plastic scale model. After a assembling the model I photographed it in various positions including some close ups as approximating the same view point of the original.  

Typical model setup for photographing

This was used for the bomb bay doors and landing gear

 These photos were also used later for the B-17s in the background.

Bomb bay doors, landing gear and rear horizontal stabilizers in place

The detail of the ball turret on the model was not satisfactory because of the small scale so I search the Internet and found a fairly high resolution photo that someone had taken at some air show somewhere. It was taken from the correct view point. It was not copy righted so it became my ball turret.

Ball turret in place

Part 3 will deal with the battle damage.