Pearl Harbor attack 80th anniversary
Curtiss P-40B, 2nd Lt. George Welch, 47th PS, 15th PG, USAAC, Haleiwa Air Base, Hawaii. Lt. Welch was one of only a handful of USAAF pilots who managed to get their planes off the ground and engage the Japanese on the morning of December 7th, 1941 during the Japanese...
Pearl Harbor survivor audio – Philip Rasmussen
Tomorrow is the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Rasmussen was one of only 14 U.S. pilots who managed to get airborne that morning.
SBD-3 Dauntless progress
Making slow progress on the SBD-3 profile. I'm still trying to locate dimension and detail information for the DF antenna inside the cockpit so that will likely be one of the last items added. So far markings research has been completed for the following pilots: Dusty...
SBD-3 Dauntless scale drawing
After a year and a half of research, my SBD-3 scale drawing is finally finished. Once I have my initial color template completed, I intend on doing 3-4 aircraft from the Battle of Midway between now and the 80th anniversary of that battle next June. The first profiles...
P-51B-15-NA, Lt. Joe Blackburn, 5th Fighter Squadron
P-51B-15-NA "Little Joe" 43-24818, 5th Fighter Squadron, 52nd Fighter Group, Lt. Joe Blackburn, Madna, Italy, June 1944. Click the gallery thumbnail below for a larger view of this aircraft.
Natural metal experiments
Finally getting some free time to get back to work on a natural metal P-51 profile I've been experimenting with. So far this has 629 layers in Photoshop, still some work to do on surface detailing, skin stress ripples, etc. I'm pleased with how this is turning out,...
Fighters of the Iron Cross released
Eagle Editions has just released Fighters of the Iron Cross, featuring quite a few of my Luftwaffe profile illustrations in it. This is Jerry Crandall's magnum opus on Luftwaffe fighters, if you are a fan of WWII aviation this is a must have for your library. You can...
DING HAO begins to take form…
My new P-51B profile template begins with blocking in basic colors and then adding highlights and shadows in multiple layers, each one stacking on top of the last and giving more depth to the aircraft's form. Most of my profiles will end up with 500-600 individual...
Why an accurate scale drawing is critical
The reason I spend so much time researching and creating an accurate scale drawing for my color profiles is if the drawing has dimensional errors, the aircraft's markings will not line up where they should. Either the marking will have to be 'fudged' and stretched or...
The beginning of James Howard’s P-51B ‘Ding Hao’ profile
My new profile project is James Howard's P-51B 'Ding Hao'. As my existing P-51B profile template is about 20 years old, I am starting from scratch and creating a new scale drawing and profile template for the project. As aways, the first step is gathering the research...