It goes without saying that one of the first steps in creating a painting is coming up with the composition. On some paintings I have unlimited possibilities as to what angles, colors and elements I will depict. However, when I am depicting a subject that has been well documented, the facts surrounding the subject often limit the amount of creativity I can apply to the scene. Wolff's Requiem provided some unique challenges. Generally speaking, in most aerial combat scenes your subject is the victor. When that's the case, an artist can follow some simple rules: make your subject the largest aircraft in the composition, put it in the foreground and put the vanquished foe going down somewhere in the background. OR, if depicting the moments just prior to the victory: again, make the subject the largest aircraft in the composition, put it in the foreground pointing or turning towards its target and put the soon-to-be vanquished foe smaller in the background.

In this case the subject IS the vanquished foe. To make matters more complicated, the victor is in such close proximity to the subject that his aircraft is going to be similar in scale and value to the subject's aircraft.

In working with this subject I was reminded how much the middle wing on the Fokker triplane limits the usable angles for painting. When the subject is the pilot, you want to be able to see the pilot in the painting (even if it is just his head). The middle wing of the triplane blocks the view of the pilot from many angles. On top of that, not only did I find myself limited to viewing angles that would allow a clear view of Wolff, but I also felt that in order to tell the story accurately, I should also make it clear that Wolff was flying an F.1 triplane and not a Dr.1 - in other words, I needed to find an angle that allowed the viewer to see some of the distinctive characteristics that differentiated the F.1 triplane from the Dr.1.

I spent several frustrating weeks fumbling over thumbnail sketches and looking carefully at models from different angles. Several times I found myself settling on a composition, only to come back to it the next day and realize that it either wasn't exactly what I wanted or that it wouldn't adequately tell the story the way I had hoped. Finally, I came up with an idea that I knew would not only tell the story well, but would also be a strong and dynamic composition.

A sample of the early sketches I drew for Wolff's Requiem along with the thumbnail that I would develop into my composition.