You bring up a good point: "And I think maybe possibly it's a relatively decent representation--------." (BOY----talk about a plethora of weasel words----think, maybe, possibly, fairly, relatively, decent!! But then again we're talking about art and artists here, so what you see is what you get; and there is no right or wrong---only what is so. What is so is it's your representation---not mine, nor anybody else.)
My son, an accomplished artist at age 12, took a box of colored pencils, and copied a head shot (color photograph) of Mario Andretti seated in his race car---copied---EXACTLY!! You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between photo and drawing when he finished---and the disgusting part is it didn't take him very long to do it. By the same token, 4-5 years later, he did several oil paintings which can only be described as wildly abstract---and took awhile to reconcile the titles with what you saw.
The bottom line is when you create something from scratch with your hands, eyes, and brain; it is what you say it is--never mind what we, the great unwashed, may have to say about it.
That said, the addition of three little horizontal lines at the right front of the frame (ahead of the cylinder) made my day---as did the added detail between the cylinder and the recoil shield.
The bottom line is you've come far---and the most noteworthy improvement is the proportioning, which struck me as way off in the beginning (if you're the one who did the Victory model)---and now strikes me as dead on.
Ralph Tremaine
