Art Show in Portland!!!!

Imagine a guy who makes art all day every day actually getting into an art show! It happens every now and then. Dropping some info on our show in Portland next Thursday the 29th. If anyone lives in or near the PDX... stop by and entertain your retinas at the Goodfoot Lounge for awhile. Ought to be a damn good show and well worth the effort. Gonna be a good show with great artists... Codak, Eyeone, Gabe Decker, J.Shea 9 and me... Racecar13.

Me 323

I'm a big fan of airplanes! I'm generally addicted to all things mechanical. Gears, wheels, motors, cars, planes, rockets... all of it. Cross that with a love for history and you get a WWII aviation nut bag! Nothing brings rapid innovation like a full blown world war. Most people might be familiar with the greats... the B17's, the Mustangs, Spitfires, P-38's and P-47s. But there were just as many unusual creations that never left much of a mark.
We all know Germans were known for their big plans and super secret projects. I'm no fan of the Nazi plan by any stretch of the imagination but some of the remarkable projects they tossed into the sky rode the boundaries between pure recklessness and genuine cutting edge innovation. Perhaps you've heard they were the first to use rockets and to take shots at the flying wing design. But have you ever heard of the Messerschmitt 323? Maybe not.
When I was a kid I had seen a few pictures of one of these oddly shaped flying boxes. Never knew its name and never really looked into. I recently ran into this ugly bird and figured it was worth a blog. So here it for shits and grins...


The Me 323 was never an overly successful creation. It was built from several ideas that had already been in use. The concept was to create a light weight transport plane that could travel long distances to resupply forces along the Russian front as well as in Africa. She had a light weight body based on glider technology combined with six captured French 990 hp Gnome-Rhone 14 cylinder radial engines. The unusual mix of a massive wing and a canvas wrapped shell sounds a bit precarious at best. She could handle large cargo but never got a decent speed or ceiling. In actual combat, she was an easy target and suffered massive losses. On one run in 1943 while crossing the Mediterranean bound for Tunis, 14 of 16 323's were take out by British Spitfires.




Two gunner positions inside the wings of the plane.

Rockets were added to the wings to create lift on short runways. I don't think that technology was all figure out to well at the time.

If for whatever reason you've read this far... There you have it... The Me 323. Got to love this bird! She could very well be the ugly grandfather of all heavy lift aircraft in use today. Go drink a beer!

Whats the point?

What really goes into making a graphic that might end up on a helmet? Looking at the slick new production samples is always a great artistic high. I get a buzz off staring at finished new images after so many weeks of brain frying clicking and dragging thousands upon thousands of points and curves that make up all the color layers. From the first sketches all the way through to final Illustrator layers I try to keep a basic idea on what the image will look like when its done. I try to set them up so that all the people who handle the files into the production process can see what I'm seeing and hopefully have little trouble translating the chaos. My small brain takes a beating attempting to process and direct the detailed tedium. But it wasn't always this way.

I grew up using only pencils and ink for finished images. Spent many hours in dark rooms with hand cut rubylith seps and diffusion transfer machines. Shooting halftones, bumping shots, choking and spreading exposures... not to mention changing fixer and developer all the time. I don't remember the last day I used a vacuum table or had to order a box of film. At some point I sat down to use a Mac and everything changed. I still love to use the pencils and inks for the lines but after a clean high rez scan... my little universe has completely changed.

The big buzz about the computer was how fast everything was going to get done. While it is quite true that operations go at lightning speed... My deadlines are just as tight, the work nights go as late as they ever did back then and the work never seems to get done any faster. So whats the point? Dunno... But it does looks kinda cool on a screen capture. Just for Kicks... Have a good damn day!

Pencils and finals

Before and after pics on the new Icon Chieftain art. Something about pencil drawings seems to make them look dynamic. Pencils can look better then the final inks. Kinda cool.

Pigeon ball

Pershing Square piegeon pic for kicks. There ought to be some humor bit about a pigeon and big balls... but I'll keep it as clean as possible... Whatever works.

I tried to be Frank!

To say that Frank Frazetta was an influential artist is like telling someone the sky is blue. After noticing every post on facebook I figured it was a bit redundant to say my peace. As it happens, I recently took a stab at a gas tank oil painting for an Icon project. No easy task, but I did what I could first time out of the gate. Some days I wish I had taken up airbrush... The next trick is getting the clear to stick.