Layin of color for for this picture which has a working title of Myers and Burris. Private commission about two 2nd Engineer soldiers who take out three North Korean tanks during the early stages of the Korean War.

Description of the scene: In the early morning hours of July 6, 1964, Special Forces Camp Nam Dong, in the Republic of South Vietnam, was attacked by a large Viet Cong guerilla force. Detachment A-726, a 12-man Special Forces unit from 7th Group, fought desperately to hold off concerted enemy attacks from in and outside of the camp. For five hours the battle raged back and forth, at one point a 3 man Viet Cong sapper team attempts to breach the front gate and is killed by Captain Roger Donlon while Lt. Julian Olejniczak returns enemy fire and Sgt. Mike Disser fires the 60 mm mortar. Captain Donlon would receive the Medal of Honor, Lt. Olejniczak and Sgt Mike Disser the Silver Star for their heroic action. Captain Dolon was the first Medal of Honor recipient for Special Forces and for the Vietnam War.

The painting will be presented December 5th and will hang in the entrance of 7th Group Special Forces, Donlon Hall at Eglin Air Force Base.After the presentation Col. Donlon and Cpt. Disser will sign 64 limited edition prints. To reserve a copy use this link on my web site: https://larryselman.com/roger-donlon/

This is a pretty unusual picture for several reasons, its not the subject but the colors and turnaround time that made it different. The picture is a night fight light up by a flare and burning buildings and truck. Obviously the fire is warm light but the flare could be one of several temperatures. The choices for that were either blue or green which would also cover the night colors. Using a color wheel a picking a narrow range of colors to work from helped simplify the painting choices. Going with a blue-green night and flare color and yellow to orange for the fire. The rest of the colors would be muted along either of those temperatures and dropping any mid tones down to very dark or light depending on what the light source was. This green blue to red orange is very common in sci-fi and fantasy but I had never used that in 36 years as a artist. The other issue was time. While I had been working on this over a period of time it was only after finishing the EANGUS picture that I had a window to finish this one. Normally after an intense job of many weeks I need to recharge the mental batteries then focus on the next picture and set that image up in my head. There wasn't time for that to happen, not a big deal because its been done in the past and taken with the unusual color pallet there were more than a few days to adjust to the color scheme.

The completed EANGUS picture titled Enlisted Guardians. The client requested that I not post any progress or the finished painting until it was presented at the PNGAS convention dinner. It was unveiled last night just in time for Veterans Day. The picture contains a wide variety of soldiers and equipment, uniforms, races and about equal distribution of men and women that make up the Army and Air Guard. Part time soldiers who are called to serve other citizens in times of need like hurricane relief, flood and wild fires they are also a big part of the National Defense serving abroad. The Militia soldier and early American flag symbolize the beginning of the country and direct lineage from then to today. The group of soldiers and airmen show how much change has occurred sine 1775 and look toward the future generations who will take their place. As I was working on this picture the Guard lost aircraft and personal in combat or accidents in the states. The two C-130 aircraft on the right of the picture were lost in crashes. The first one from Puerto Rico went down in Georgia and the second aircraft from North Carolina was lost out West fighting fires. The kneeling airman on the right represents the 8 Pararescue lost in combat from the 106th in New York. Always Ready and Always There is the motto for the Guard and aptly describes them and their missions.

The EANGUS drawing has been revised and most of the figure reference was completed using soldiers and airmen from Indiantown Gap National Guard Post. With only a few more figures to photograph this picture should start to move into the painting stage soon.

The completed Pennsylvania Counterdrug Task Force patch. Painted with gouache, ruling pen and compass just like the old days of illustration design. We learned how to do this the first year of art school 1979-80 and thought it was tedious then. It was even more so now because I had forgotten how to handle the water based paint. After a while it came back and think the final achieved the desired results. In the color sketch the owl was a brown but found they different colors were distracting, simplifying that color scheme solved the problem and added a bit more drama to the design.

Nocturnal painting of the George Weikert farm in Gettysburg Pennsylvania. Its been a while since there was a new landscape added to the portfolio, needed to do something for the gallery in Gettysburg. I'm pretty happy how it turned out and look forward to doing a couple more if time allows. Its better to work through a series of night pictures than jump around, at least for me its better.

This one was a bit of a struggle early because night pictures require a different set of painting skills. The reference shot in daytime will need to be adjusted some and then the mental part of what night looks like will have to fill in the rest. Pictures like this show the importance of notes and just looking without actually doing anything. That may seem easy but standing outside at night and just looking is something somewhat foreign to us now. We are wired to move or be constantly consuming information at a much faster pace, that isn't going to work with well if you want to become proficient at any part of painting. Making notes and observing may sound and be old fashioned but there are no short cuts to it.

This will be up on the web site in a few days or at the Gettysburg Frame Shop soon, if you are in town and interested in purchasing it.

The National Guard reactivated the Counter-drug Joint Task Force and I was asked to redesign a crest for them. The old crest had a Owl, moon and a Kiowa helicopter. The helicopter is now a UH-72 Lakota and we kept the other elements by redesigning the composition. These two were the best designs so far but its early and plan to do this quickly because of the urgency of the mission.

Mixed media drawing of a WWII German paratrooper at or around Normandy. Its sort of a portrait commission, the main figure has done some reenacting and modeling for me and we are trading off a small painting for all he has done. Tom modeled both figures in the drawing and made the MG 34 ( machine gun ) the second soldier is holding. There isn't much German soldier work in the portfolio and most of my work involves multiple figures on a much larger scale. It was interesting to put this together taking the non-action route made it more palatable for me, I'm not a fan of the WWII German army. In a very crowded schedule this is a decent start in solving design or content problems. When I pick this up again any flaws not apparent today will show up then.

I will be one of the Special Guests at the last national GI Joe convention in Chattanooga TN. Its sad to see these end and they have been a lot of fun over the years. I've met and made many friends attending these shows. The venues changed every year and it was also just a great traveling experience to go and see new places that probably would never have happened.

When I started working on the line back in the 90's it was hard to imagine all of the different assignments, people you would engage along the way and effect some of your art work would have. In a few days I'll post a much deeper introspective of the work, people and experiences.

Here are two links for the show, if you are around Chattanooga June 23,24,25 please come by and see what its been about for over 25 years.

http://www.gijoecon.com/tn2018/index.cfm

http://www.gijoecon.com/tn2018/con18Selman.cfm

The original concept for this picture was found to be a little close to a Katrina picture and after some discussion we moved to a montage of elements and figures that would suit their needs. The first was a bit to aviation heavy, a montage will solve that pretty easily.

The National Guard motto is Always Ready, Always There and decided to use it in the picture which is a big departure from all of my other work, in this case it fits in nicely with the overall concept. The picture has a center image of the minuteman and early American flag as it background. The Minuteman has been associated with the National Guard throughout its history and goes back to the part time citizen and part time soldier ready at a minutes notice to stop and defend the country. America has had an aversion to large standing armies and employed the militia concept which is essentially a part time army without the cost and fear of the army being used to control the population as England did before the Revolution. America really didn't have a large standing army until after WWII but it kept the Guard and Reserve concept within the states.

The war setting or combat vehicles on the left is balanced with humanitarian right side. The center group of soldiers and airmen will be a mix of both branches and jobs. The Guard is made up from all fifty states and territories there will be a mix of ethnic groups and men and women to reflect that. The next step is securing good figure and vehicle reference then start on a finished drawing for approval before beginning the painting.