# "When I'm not building miniature engines I" sorry, you'll have to look.



## gbritnell (Jun 12, 2009)

This hobby started quite a few years before my miniature engine interests. I try to spend some time on each one througout the year but when I really get into a project it's hard to find the time for all of them. Following is a sampling of some of my work. Over the years I have worked in watercolor and pencil but about 10 years ago I got into colored pencil. I really enjoy automobiles, new and old, so alot of my work is mechanical in nature but I also do many other subjects. 
gbritnell


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## Tin Falcon (Jun 12, 2009)

I know its a trite phrase , but nice artwork
Tin


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## RobWilson (Jun 12, 2009)

WOW FANTASTIC WORK , the detail and reflections in the car body work is out of this world :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow:
i would love to be able to draw 
Regards ROB
have to ask gbritnell how do you do the chrome parts?


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## hitandmissman (Jun 12, 2009)

That is some fine art work! You should be proud of that. Myself, I can't draw anything.


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## Stan (Jun 12, 2009)

It is not fair that one man is blessed with so many talents.
Please continue to show us your work.


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## zeeprogrammer (Jun 12, 2009)

Very very nice.

...and what Stan said...or is about to say...I saw his post while I was typing mine...


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## putputman (Jun 12, 2009)

After seeing those drawings I can understand how you get so detailed with your model engines. Soooooo much talent.


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## bearcar1 (Jun 12, 2009)

My fav is the Case 65. Outstanding rendering. Very nice indeed.

BC1
Jim


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## gbritnell (Jun 13, 2009)

Thank you everyone for the gracious comments. Rob, chrome like shiny paint is represented by the reflection of objects surrounding it. Your mind has been programmed to see chrome as something shiny but when you render it on paper you show the mind what it's used to seeing. A lot of times chrome will reflect the sky so therefore you see blue and you say that's chrome without ever asking why it's chrome. There are times when the hood on a red car is actually blue because of the sky's reflection but you don't pay attention to it because you see the rest of the car as red so therefore the hood is red. If I painted a picture of a car without reflections it would seem flat and unrealistic. Here are a few more cars with reflections. The Lincoln roadster is actually shiny black, so shiny in fact that except for a few surfaces everything else is a reflection of the sky and objects around it. The Cord and the 55 Chevy are also have highly refective surfaces.
gbritnell


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## RobWilson (Jun 13, 2009)

Hi gbritnell , so that's how its dun,you make it sound so easy,i have always wondered when i see Chip Fooze do a drawing of a car.
great work, Rob

How long dose it take you to produce one of those works of art?


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## Mo deller (Jun 13, 2009)

Very very very good. In fact so good I don't think that engine of the month is real,it's a drawing! he's fooled us all. :big:

Joking of course, superb stuff.

Peter.


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## gbritnell (Jun 13, 2009)

Hi Rob,
A picture like the 32 Ford or the Cord can take up to 50 hours to complete, from the initial sketch, transfering onto the paper and then coloring it in. Working with colored pencils takes an extremely long time becuause of the many layers of coloring. To get a desired color you need to apply sometimes up to 5 layers of pencil of different shades to get what you want. Naturally the online representations don't come out as well as the originals.


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## RobWilson (Jun 13, 2009)

OUT STANDING WORK ,I thought it would take a lot longer than 50 hours, mined i struggle with painting by numbers ;D 
 Do you work from a photo or from memory?
love that sea/land scape.


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## Lew Hartswick (Jun 13, 2009)

I think those are photographs. He's just pulling out collective legs. 
  ...lew...


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## PhillyVa (Jun 13, 2009)

George,

I think you should be :bow: "Master" :bow: of the month...you do some very nice work Thanks for sharing...is there anything else that you can show us.

Regards

Philly


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## gbritnell (Jun 13, 2009)

Rob, yes I work from photos but not directly. By that I mean I have a large photo collection of cars, animals, skies, flowers etc. When I compose a picture of a car I start with a photo of that car (taken by myself) and then use photos of other elements to complete the composition. Other than going out in the field and doing what is called Plein Aire art most artists will use reference material of some sort. It's hard to have complete knowledge of every subject that you do. When I do portraits I use one of many photos that I take of the person. Not all photos will make an acceptable portrait. The memory part is good for quick oil or watercolor landscapes and such where true accuracy isn't as important. 
Philly, are you asking about more artwork?
gbritnell


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## RobWilson (Jun 13, 2009)

Very interesting gbritnell ,yep we want too see more artwork 
Regards Rob


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## gbritnell (Jun 13, 2009)

Here's a couple of regular pencil drawings, a car done with watercolor and one done with airbrush and acrylic. 
gbritnell


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## steamer (Jun 13, 2009)

So George....is there anything you can't do? :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: ;D


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## steamer (Jun 13, 2009)

I actually saw that MkII with the Gurney "Bubble".......though I think the colors were different.


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## rake60 (Jun 13, 2009)

George I can see where your metal carving eye has come from.
Gorgeous works! :bow:

Rick


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## gbritnell (Jun 14, 2009)

Once again, thank you very much. Here's several more. One is an Auburn Speedster. When I composed the picture I found the aircraft that won the national air races that year and added it and the old style hangar into the picture. The next is another one of my granddaugter. She's one of my favorite subjects. And last for today is a pair of Packards. The old house in the background was my brother-in-law's bed and breakfast in Georgia. The architecture of the house fit in with the cars.
I'm also including a closeup of the front end of the Packard as I was doing the drawing. That's why there's no grass in this shot.
gbritnell


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## Kermit (Jun 14, 2009)

I can't be the only one willing to pay for something so beautiful... ???

 Your drawings are way way way above average.  couldn't think of another adjective that's not been used yet. 

Respectfully,
Kermit


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## rake60 (Jun 14, 2009)

George the little girl in the drawings is adorable!
Is she a relative?

Rick


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## gbritnell (Jun 14, 2009)

Thanks Rick, yes, she's my granddaugter. I have done quite a few pictures of her since she was born. She just turned 5 so it's getting harder and harder to have her sit still long enough to get a good picture. 
gbritnell


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## Maryak (Jun 14, 2009)

George,

You are most definitely one talented individual. :bow: :bow: :bow:

Best Regards
Bob


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## rake60 (Jun 14, 2009)

Well I'm from RedNeck territory.

We have saying like:
"Step back, she'll tell you where the bear **** in the buckwheat."

I'm usually a pretty good judge of character.
How far off am I on this one? 
 :big:

All of your drawings are beautiful!
I used to do pen and ink myself. There are a lot of 20to 30 year old
sketch canvases in the attic here.

Rick


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## steamer (Jun 14, 2009)

George those are gorgeous!.....and your Granddaughter is very cute!
 :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow:

Dave


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## PhillyVa (Jun 15, 2009)

George,

Your talent won't be wasted around here very good work. How about posting some photos too...I'm sure they are excellent also.

Warm regards

Philly

PS...a karma point for your :bow: talent :bow:  woohoo1


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## ChooChooMike (Jun 16, 2009)

MAGNIFICENT WORK GEORGE !! :bow: X 1000 !! Wish I had 1/100 of your talent 

When the first image came up, I thought, nice picture, until you mentioned it was a drawing. WONDERFUL !! The chrome reflections are killer !! 

Now you have to prove your Engine-of-the-month is a real engine by showing us the video of it running 

Have you thought about selling your drawings or having an exhibition somewhere ??

Mike


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## gbritnell (Jun 16, 2009)

Thanks Mike,
I don't have any finished drawings for this engine. When I started on it I had access to company engineering drawings and scaled them down and modified what needed to be modified to make it a working model. For the parts I didn't have drawings for I measured them directly from a full sized engine. I have pages of notes and sketches from the original build but they never to translated into working drawings. My engine took so long to build because I duplicated all of the casting shape on my parts. This took forever, laying out, cutting, laying out, well you get the idea. To make working drawings everything would have to be simplified mainly because the drawings would be so complicated to show all of the casting shape. As far as an exhibition, I live in northern Ohio and get to NAMES, Cabin Fever, and last year I went to the new show they started in southern Ohio. I also go to some of the antique engine shows that have facilities to exhibit model engines. I would like to get to the Black Hills show or out west to the GEARS show but logistically that probably won't happen. As far as the engine running, I kind of gave an overview of the operational problems I had when I first got it assembled. Yes it does run and in fact I have some VHS film of it running. I posted a thread on the new distributor that I just finished for it and I have made a new starting ring for the flywheel. It has a one way bearing in an aluminum hub that will freewheel when the engine starts. I hope to fire it up within the next couple of weeks and will take a new video of it at that time. I guess I just got lazy when I first got it running. I knew I had to make some major changes to it to get it to run better and I just put them off. I ran into the same thing with the Holt but I had more perseverance with it and didn't stop until I got it close to perfect. It's frustrating when you spend many hours on a part (distributor, carburetor) and then it doesn't work properly so you have to make another and sometimes more. When I built this engine (mid 80's) there wasn't the internet, at least not as we know it today, so getting help with problems was almost non existant. There was a lot of people building engines and miniatures but there wasn't the venues that we have today. Groups like this provide so much knowledge and information for the beginner to the veteran and generally someone has run into a situation at one time or another and can offer their findings. Here's a drawing that the aircraft people might enjoy. I had attended an airshow in Michigan a couple of years back and they had a nice static display out in the field with several old Stearman trainers. I took many pictures at the show and when I got home and went through them I found several that I thought would make a good painting/drawing. I took a couple of the shots of the Stearmans and made up my own compostion in Photoshop. When I was satisfied with what I had I transfered it to paper and started adding color. This is the result. I am posting the smaller version because of the proportions of the original would be hard to see on this forum. For those interested in how the picture came to life you can go to my Photobucket link and see the work in progress and a larger finished version.
gbritnell.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v43/gbritnell/Stearman painting/


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## cobra428 (Jun 16, 2009)

George,
Being an auto and airplane fancier, those are beautiful Thm: :bow:. Now tell me how you do the time warp and can do all this stuff :big:
Tony


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## gbritnell (Jun 17, 2009)

Tony, this could get very wordy but I'll refrain. Let me just say that over the years I didn't watch much television. 
gbritnell


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## cobra428 (Jun 17, 2009)

I hear ya George. I'm not big on TV either. I have one in the shop to keep me company with some backround noise. News and ball games is all that I listen to or glance at.
Tony


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## Brian Rupnow (Jun 17, 2009)

Your work is beatifull. The only things that I was ever able to draw successfully were machines, and not pretty drawings like yours, but mechanical drawings for industrial use. This is my other hobby---hotrods. Generally its hot rods in the summer and small steam engines in the winter.--This year I'm just killing time untill July when I will drive this car to the Atlantic Streetrod Nationals in New Brunswick on Canada's east coast, so I am building a hit and miss steam engine on another thread.---Brian


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## gbritnell (Jun 17, 2009)

Great looking pickup Brian. What is it a model A with a 32 grill shell? I like the old school stripping on it. How long have you had it?
gbritnell


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## Brian Rupnow (Jun 17, 2009)

I built it 5 years ago. I've been building hotrods for over 40 years. This one has an interesting pedigree. I started with an original 31 Ford model a 2 door sedan. I shortened the body five foot, cut the top off, and molded the top of the doors and the back of what became the cab section. I built the box from scratch, as well as the convertible top. The grill shell is fiberglass 32 Ford with a home made grill insert and the fenders are a 28/29 fiberglass fender package. The cab is 6" longer than a stock model A pickup cab, and the box is 18" shorter thn stock.---Its on a 103.5" wheelbase as per original Model A's of all years. The rearend is S10 pickup, with a 305/350 engine/tranny package out of an 86 pontiac.


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## cobra428 (Jun 17, 2009)

Hey George,
Here's some of my junk that I been doing the time warp with:









































I just thought your time warp method was better than mine :big:
Tony

PS Hopefully....one day (more like years)....I'll knock off a 1/6 scale of the 427


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## zeeprogrammer (Jun 17, 2009)

Shoot. All I got is this ashtray I made in ceramics class. :big:

Great stuff everyone. What fantastic talent. I'm very happy it's on this forum.


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## gbritnell (Jun 17, 2009)

Great looking builds Tony. Is your a Cobra a Factory Five model. I have 2 friends that have built their kits. The closest I came to RC stuff was when my boys were into cars and trucks. I got to make all the trick diffs and u-joints. Here's one you'll really like.
gbritnell


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## Jeff02 (Jun 17, 2009)

When Im not building, Im boiling water.
Live Steam that is.


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## cobra428 (Jun 17, 2009)

George,
The cobra is a Contemporary Kit. Ground up build. Frame is 4" round tube ladder. Custom front end 2 conie coil overs, Jag rear IRS with 4 Conie coil overs full Posy.
Tony


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## gbritnell (Jun 18, 2009)

Here's some more of my portrait work. I have my granddaughter when she was two years old, my niece's daughter when she was four years old and an old friend from one of our motorcycle trips. 
gbritnell


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## zeeprogrammer (Jun 18, 2009)

Can't shake the feeling I've seen some of your stuff before. Wonderful stuff.

Threw my ceramics class ashtray out.

It was chipped anyway. And I'd colored outside the lines. And the cigarettes kept falling out. And who smokes nowadays anyways?

Just kidding. Who I am I fooling? I never made an ashtray.


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## Jeff02 (Jun 18, 2009)

Only thing that comes to mind is *WOW*

Apologies for posting what I do on your post. I was not trying to take away from your work in any way. 

*The work you do is Magnificent!​*


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## cobra428 (Jun 18, 2009)

George,
You continue to amaze. I didn't mention it before but that is one beautiful cobra you've done. I showed it to the guys at work and they asked "is that a photo of your car?" :bow:
Tony


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## gbritnell (Jun 19, 2009)

Not a problem Jeff. I always thought that a thread was a good way to get people to join in on something. Unless it's a total hijack, post anything relevant. 
gbritnell


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## namonllor (Jun 19, 2009)

The very first drawing, I thought, was a photo of your Rod, not a pencil drawing. In other words, I thought your other hobby was building Hot Rods (my weakness), and you had a photo to of your rod to show us. 
Once I saw the other renderings, I realized they were pencil Drawings. I too love to Draw and can tell those who think they can't, "You can...." I've proved it to many in my lifetime. It just takes time....
Absolutely beautiful work....thank you for sharing it with us.
Ren


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## steamer (Jun 20, 2009)

YOu are a very talented man!

Dave


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## Foozer (Jun 20, 2009)

Always liked artwork, good talent you have. Grew up with a brother who painted, while I failed at Etch-a-Sketch. Nice work


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## dparker (Jun 20, 2009)

George: Those are some awsome drawings and really great subjects. I thought I was looking at the real thing (or at least a picture of) when I first looked at your post. Very pleasing to the eyes, and not in the least you have very attractive or cute Grandchildren. You are a man blessed with many talents.
don


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## Orrin (Oct 17, 2011)

Bump. The newcomers need to see this. It's too remarkable to remain buried in two years of old posts.
  Orrin


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## steamer (Oct 18, 2011)

I couldn't agree more!

Dave


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## lazylathe (Oct 18, 2011)

Like some others have said, The first one i thought was a photo of your other hobby; car restorations!

 th_confused0052 But it is a pencil drawing!!!!! :bow: :bow:

Excellent work George!
An amazing collection of art!

Andrew


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## hopeless (Oct 18, 2011)

Is it any wonder that your models look so good? It seems that talent runs strong in your genes and look forward to many more of things that you do
Pete


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## cfellows (Oct 19, 2011)

Wow, George, I'm blown away. How many hours does it take to complete some of these pieces of art?

Chuck


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## CMS (Oct 19, 2011)

Think I commented once before about this but I'm having you draw up my next tattoo. Love the old farm equipment, but the reflections of the engine in the car's paint is very cool.


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## moanaman (Oct 19, 2011)

Thank you Orrin for bringing this up to the top.

George we have a saying in this country as jack of all trades master of none, that is where I fit. I can do most things except anything arty, and most of what I do works but not things of beauty. 

 I proclaimed you a Master of machining with your 5 speed gear box. Now seems as though you are a Master of everything. 

I appreciate what you have produced as has most people on this forum and also many out side of it I guess. May you live a very long time and keep producing these are pieces of great beauty. 

Thanks MASTER George B.


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## rustyknife (Oct 23, 2011)

That's very awesome! I too thought the first picture was of a real truck. The reflections are almost perfect, It's very clear that you see the world differently then most and it aides you into some very fine art work.

Very impressive.

Regards,
Eric


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## Troutsqueezer (Oct 23, 2011)

I'm not exactly a newcomer but still I haven't seen this thread. Very nice work Mr. George. I have also been an artist for many years and appreciate the work and attention to detail that went into these. I do portraits in pencil and and watercolor plein air. I won't steal your thread with examples. My avatar is one portrait of a Nez Perce Native American I did some time ago, naturally it looks much better full size. 

One thing that slowed me down after a while and maybe this has happened to you. One day I woke up and everything was blurry. I rushed to the eye doctor and he told me that I had dry eye, from staring too intently at the drawings and paintings as I was doing them. I'm careful anymore to blink more often to keep that from happening again. It took a little time to clear up. 

-Trout


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## gbritnell (Oct 26, 2011)

Geez fellows, I didn't expect to see this at the top again. 
Trout, Having relied on my eyes for my work and hobby over the years I had some scary moments a short while back. I had some flashes and black specs floating around in one eye so I quickly jumped onto the internet to see what it was all about. Finding that if it didn't progress from that stage it wasn't a big worry but within a week I started getting 'floaters' so I went to an eye specialist. After a couple of tests it was determined that I didn't have retinal detachment but rather vitriol detachment. He said it comes with age and as long as everything doesn't get cloudy it also wasn't a great concern. Shortly after I started getting 'floaters' in my other eye. Ah the joys of getting old! So far it hasn't affected my art or machining but it's kind of spooky when you go through most of your life never giving much thought to how valuable your eyes are. 
 As usual, thanks fellows for the gracious comments.
George


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## dsquire (Oct 26, 2011)

George

The quality of the work that you do, no matter what the project, is second to none. As a result it will always rise to the top, which is where it deserves to be. Keep on having fun George and take care of those eyes. 
 :bow: :bow:

Cheers 

Don


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