One of the problems with taking a long time to do a single airliner template is that more often than not (especially if it takes long enough), the aircraft in question is no longer popular and highly sought-after by the time the illustrations are complete. Of course I knew that the Airbus A340 was a dying breed when I first thought to make side view templates of it way back in 2012, but here in 2016, the airlines can’t seem to retire these things fast enough.

Sure they were a perfectly fine aircraft for their day (ok, perhaps a bit underpowered), but there are now far better performing and more fuel-efficient options available from both Airbus and Boeing which makes this bird an economically poor performer in comparison.

airbus a340-300 side view
Two side profile illustrations of a white Airbus A340-300 over a blank background with and without the landing gear deployed
airbus a340-300 line drawing
Here is the line drawing of that version over a blank background with and without the landing gear deployed

Luckily for me, this was a relatively easy set of drawings to make. Since the A340 is basically an A330 with four engines (and a few other really minor changes), I was able to leverage my existing A330 templates quite nicely. Essentially all I had to do was to create a new wing and engines, make a few minor adjustments, and I then I was good to go.

It wasn’t easy by any means, but it was much better than having to create a complete aircraft from scratch! The landing gear is always the most time-consuming part of creating these illustrations, with the wing and engines being the second biggest time-suck. Having half of the work done already was a huge time saver.

Airbus A340-300X all white side profile
Two side profile illustrations of a white Airbus A340-300X over a blank background with and without the landing gear deployed
A340-300X side profile line drawing
A340-300X side profile line drawing with and without the landing gear

buy source file a340-300 airliner template

Speaking of wings and engines, I guess I never realized how small the A340-300’s engines really are. Sure there are four of them, but still…they are relatively tiny when compared to the fuselage of this airplane. I noticed the same thing with my Embraer 175 templates – that airplane has the tiniest engines of all!

My apologies once again for taking so long to create blank illustration templates for the A340. I know many of you have been asking for these over the past few years so hopefully you will find them useful for your projects. Note that I am also going to be doing all of the other variants of the A340 over the coming weeks. I’m going to start with the -500 and -600, and will then wrap this set up with the least-popular -200. I know this series has been a long time coming so I thank you all for your patience!

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25 Comments

  1. Hi Scott
    Like how you have done the jet. Something which would look nice on the A340-300 is the Mahan air livery. This Private-owned Iranian airline offers the best services in IR. And also has a very beautiful livery. Here’s some links to Mahan Air A340-300 images:
    http://www.juergenbaumbusch.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Mahan-Air-A340-300.jpg
    http://www.samchuiphotos.com/W5062/30.JPG
    http://atwonline.com/site-files/atwonline.com/files/imagecache/medium_img/uploads/2015/05/mahan-air-a340-300-icn-rf.jpg

    1. Thanks for the links Parsa – I’ve never heard of Mahan Air before. I agree, their livery is very nice! Simple and clean, though it might look even better with green engines as well.

    1. Yeah, it’s not easy is it? 😉 You did a great job on that though – blue and white is always a great combination! I think it would look pretty good if you reverse it too (make the white part blue and the blue parts white).

    1. The “X” version has a full size door in place of the smaller exit door on the base model (A340-300). That’s the only visual difference that I know of between the two, but if anyone knows of any other differences, please let me know and I’ll update the template.

    1. Interesting – I haven’t heard of anyone else having an issue, so please do let me know if it happens again and I will try to sort out the problem.

  2. Hey scott. I made a website with my illustrations. Go to the important page. That is were I gave credit to you.

    1. Wow, that’s great! Building and maintaining a website isn’t easy, but it’s worth it if you stick to it. Looking forward to seeing more of your renderings!

  3. Hi scott.
    You probably know that the UEFA EURO 2016 is starting soon. so I made this kinda awkward looking A340-300 Air france in an special livery. I wanted to also make an Disney Miraculous-styled plane but, that did not go as planned. The thing which made this one hard was that I needed to inspire the livery myself. There is no real world plane like it so, kinda hard. I’m now busy on a Pan Am A350-800 but this one was done tonight. Hope you like it.
    ______________________________________________________________________________________________________
    http://www.mediafire.com/view/nhth3309b8mnq9i/A340-300_AFUEFAEURO16.jpg

    1. Looks fantastic! Yeah, the Q400 was actually one of the easiest templates I’ve ever created due to how simple it is. But you did an awesome job on that livery!

    1. Your site is looking really good Parsa. And too bad about the Ladybug theme – the airline industry needs more creative liveries like that!

  4. Hi again
    When I saw in the reply you said “And too bad about the Ladybug theme – the airline industry needs more creative liveries like that!” I told myself let’s start this project. And after a few hours on photoshop, it was finished. I chose the Boeing 777-300ER because it’s length. But I kinda got to admit that it was a wrong decision. There is a window like every two pixels. but anyway, when put the first pixel on an image, for me it’s too late to abort it. So here it is:
    (–)
    http://www.mediafire.com/view/6hkh8o2hal6xgg9/Custom+Livery-777-300ER.jpg

  5. Hi Scott!
    Here is a list of aircraft I think you should do:
    ATR 72/42
    A318-100
    MD-11
    BAe146
    B717-200
    B727-100

  6. Hi scott!
    I think a good youtube video idea would be a series where you would continue the lufthansas new fanmade livery made by you. Also can you make a how to draw the ita airways livery? Anyways thats all i wanted to say. Thanks and bye!

    1. Good ideas! As a matter of fact, I’m actually in the process of making an ITA livery video right now. It’s quite complex (because of all the detail in the vertical stabilizer), but I hope to have it published within the next few weeks.

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