Slice & Dice: air combat over Japan, 1946...

[Otterkins2]

I'm not a big fan of "what if" conjectures. I find the whole Luftwaffe '46 scene very childish and rediculous. However, every once in a great while someone comes along and gives me a great whollop on the back of the head. This is usually John...but never mind that. You sir have managed to take something that never existed and turned it into something so believeable that it has even a jaded little Otter reeling in his socks (sorry...make that fur). If you ever turn your efforts towards that which actually did exist you'll have us all believing we're sitting in the middle of WW2 with a ringside seat!!! I believe Supah has saved some excellent examples he found online. You should post a couple Supe just so we can see what's on the other side of the fence.

[Baron]

Hi Ronnie!

Great artwork, but have to agree Otter! The Luft'46 stuff is not my thing! If you make 2D or 3D models it's not necessary to mind details as these planes never existed. The P-51 shows your real talent. You should do more of real airplanes than this "boring" Luft'46 stuff. Can't understand why this subject is so interesting for publishing houses for such a long time. That's not your problem, I know. You just finished a great piece of artwork for them!

Cheers, Simon

[gamary]

a great whollop on the back of the head. This is usually John...but never mind that

Sounds familiar. He does that, doesn't he?

[Supah]

I'm not a big fan of "what if" conjectures. I find the whole Luftwaffe '46 scene very childish and rediculous. However, every once in a great while someone comes along and gives me a great whollop on the back of the head. This is usually John...but never mind that. You sir have managed to take something that never existed and turned it into something so believeable that it has even a jaded little Otter reeling in his socks (sorry...make that fur). If you ever turn your efforts towards that which actually did exist you'll have us all believing we're sitting in the middle of WW2 with a ringside seat!!! I believe Supah has saved some excellent examples he found online. You should post a couple Supe just so we can see what's on the other side of the fence.

Examples of what?

[Skyraider3D]

Thanks a lot for the additional replies, folks!

Bloody hell m8, if that was your first profile...blimey...

I'm at a loss...

Well to be perfectly honest with you, I wasn't born making artwork professionally!
I got my first computer in 1996 and after playing Duke Nukem and EF2000 for over a year solid, I decided to see what else it could do. See here attached some of my very first digital "art"! After having done these profiles in 1997/1998, I got stuck into 3D and didn't revisit 2D profile art until I was commissioned the screen-size F-86 Sabre profile above, which dates from January 2007. It is only 900 pixels wide. The next profile after that you'll find in the Japanese Secret Projects book and is my first serious print-sized 2D profile (and it's an all-orange MXY6 of all subjects).

[Skyraider3D]

Done laughing at my 1990s profiles yet?


Otter & Simon, I can't help but feel a little bit of antipathy towards the what-if subject coming from your sides. As long as you don't take it all too seriously (it's all fantasy in the end), there's nothing wrong with expressing some imagination. While each one is entitled to their own views, it isn't necessary to scoff at the subject either. Some "what if" aircraft were extremely real - take the J7W for instance which actually flew - and the Ho 229 which was already in production and assigned to JG 400 for service in December 1945. It's only natural to imagine "what if..?". Other aircraft may never have been built but design work was complete or in advanced state. From my image above, the Ki-98 prototype was under construction and both ramjet Mustang and B-35 existed for real. So the comment "it's not necessary to mind details" is a very shortsighted view in my opinion. Many of these planes were real and they had just as many rivets as an Me 109 or more! I know, because I placed all rivets on my Ki-98 by hand and there were a lot of them... even if they don't show in the final image! DOH!!!
Anyway, personally I would be a lot more troubled by bubble-top Mustangs battling Battle-of-Britain-marked Emils than by any kind of "1946" art or similar. And yes a painting of the former is displayed in a USAF museum, I believe... "What if" is all good fun entertainment (nothing wrong with that!), while false portrayal of historic subjects is much worse...

But I'm glad though I got Otter to soften up a little, which I take as a big compliment. Over on a traditional art forum I got someone with an antipathy towards digital aviation art to soften up a bit on his opinions too, and these kind of comments make me feel I must be doing something right.

Personally I do like to focus more and more on realistic stuff. I especially love digging into combat reports and puzzling together what really happened at one particular moment, 60+ years ago. But at the same times there's only so many Spitfires, Mustangs and Messerschmitts you can stomach, so sometimes what-ifs can be nice and refreshing! Likewise for every x-plane book published, there are a dozen "new" books about the Mustang and even more about the '109. Now that seems silly to me.

From a personal point of view I find what-ifs quite relaxing to do compared to the hard-core research that goes into digging into national archives to find combat reports etc. just for the sake of making a pretty picture as authentic as possible. To illustrate I do take realistic stuff seriously, I'm in the process of digitising all Fleet Air Arm combat reports of WW2 - a big undertaking and not very artsy! Very interesting though, especially when you run into very odd scenarios such as Avengers attacking Heinkel 177s! I bet you didn't know about that one yet!

As for the "examples" of authentic scenarios, do you mean my Mustang art, like this...?





PS. Simon, for someone who dislikes Luft'46, your website is awfully full of near-what-if subjects like the Ju 388, He 162 and Do 335! A secret attraction to the subject afterall...?

[JMSmith]

hi ronnie,

glad you posted your P51, i still think that is THE best artwork of anybody anywhere in the world, awaiting my payment

i have 3 discs coming from Ghibli anyday soon, will let you know whats on them

[JMSmith]

the MXY6.

sorry ronnie, i can't find my image of the Mansyu Ki98 under construction, it's somewhere in my files, but i think i need devine help to find it and as far as i know it is THE only image of this aircraft, so i had better not have lost it

[Baron]

Hi Ronnie!

It seems you misunderstood my posting! Your artwork is great. I enjoy your work for a really long time. There is nothing more to say. I just can't understand why so many people like the Luft'46 stuff. We all should be lucky that these planes never saw service. It's for sure interesting what the engineers developed in the last months of war. Many of these designs were studdied by the Allies and were "finished". F-86 and Mig 15 are best examples.

Cheers, Simon

[Skyraider3D]

Cheers John! How much was it again?
Great to hear Ghibli is still at it. Haven't had contact with him for a very long time.
The MXY6 in your picture is the same I made artwork of. I heavily revised the popular but inaccurate MXY6 drawing that's doing the rounds, as this is also based on this machine and shows it in the same poor condition, with way too saggy landing gear. When in flyable state, the landing gear legs were near-vertical (they are slightly pointed inwards, in fact!). The vertical tail surfaces are shaped differently as well on the real thing and those in that drawing are based on an earlier wind tunnel model.


Thanks Simon! I guess Luft'46 has a similar kind of fascination as horror movies, thrillers, and other entertainment based on "unpleasantries"
I've often thought about doing a bit of a different what-if: a "Luft'41" scenario of a delayed invasion of Holland with Fokker D.XXIIIs and T.IXs battling Heinkel 100s and such. Fun fun waste of time but fun!