Osprey's Ki-44 "Tojo" Aces - profile art

[Skyraider3D]

Hi guys,

Here's a bit from a project that kept me well busy in the spring: Osprey Publications 100th Aces issue about the Nakajima Ki-44 Shoki "Tojo". For this title I did all the artwork, meaning the cover art, two pages of line drawings, 32 side view profiles and two plan view profiles. As you can imagine it was a fair bit of work, during which time I saw little of my family and my pillow...!

Let me start by showing some samples from the profile work, I hope you like them:

Firstly two Ki-44-I samples. The first is the 5th prototype as flown in combat over SE Asia 70 years ago by the 47th Independent Fighter Chutai, while the second is a movie star (not a captured aircraft) flown by the Akeno Army Flying School.




Then two Ki-44-II Ko samples. The first a well-known machine flown by ace Wakamatsu of the 85th Sentai and the second is an extremely rare 64th Sentai machine (this unit operating Ki-43 Hayabusas almost exclusively). A photo of this interesting machine appears in the book!




Two Ki-44-II Otsu samples. These are some of my favourites: firstly a broom(!)-painted 87th Sentai machine as seen in a propaganda film, during the unit's brief and disastrous detachment to Burma. Note the 40mm cannon fairings, even though the cannon themselves have been removed. The second is a very clean and shiny 70th Sentai machine as operated during a sudden deployment to Anshan, Manchuria (from Japan) to battle B-29s. The machine is still carrying its home defence markings. Although many Otsu's are often described as having their "wing armament removed", this is actually a bug-standard II Otsu model (c/n 1420). The II Otsu was delivered without wing armament by default. The 40mm cannon was an optional installation.




Two Ki-44-II Hei samples. Two more rarities: firstly a 50th Sentai example, based on the only known photo of such a machine; a crashed example captured in Burma. The second shows a 29th Sentai aircraft which is rare for displaying the swoosh-arrow symbol of this unit, normally seen on Ki-84 Hayates. Again only one photo confirms its existence. Both these photos can be found in the Osprey book.



Here's a simple composition of side, top and bottom views of a II Hei of the 47th Sentai (this unit being derived from the 47th IFC as mentioned with the first profile), plus a snippet of the line drawings I made:




Lastly a number of close-ups at full resolution:











The profiles are what I call 2.5D. Basically I rendered out metal and grey sideviews of the 3D model I constructed, then applied all colours and markings in Photoshop. The planviews are practically 3D-rendered though.

Credits for the research and colours should go to Nick Millman, author of this title. Nick has been researching Japanese aircraft for over four decades, but this Osprey title was his first book. Basically I fancied doing a Ki-44, tried to land an illustration job with Osprey and figured it was about time Nick wrote a book. So I hooked things up and the result can be found on places like Amazon!

Of course I am biased, but I reckon Nick did an awesome job on this book and I highly recommend it if you have the slightest interest in Japanese aircraft or the Pacific theatre air war.

O last but not least, the cover image of the book is available on my web store. I also intend to make the profiles available as such, but I first have to make one of them funky presentations are you guys are good at. A sideview on a white sheet being a bit bland perhaps.

If you got this far reading it all, I hope it was of interest!

[JMSmith]

beautiful work ronnie,
glad nick finally did something in writing, his head is that full of knowledge its a wonder he don't explode
just one little niggle, the only time the red looked the same was when it was first painted, two minutes later it changed colour, and kept on doing so for the duration of the aircrafts life, so i personnally would have prefered slightly varied hinomuras

[BLOWHARD]

Really nice! Great work! All 3D stuff or did you do these 2D or is it mixed???
Thanks for the detail shots too!


Nice catch on the color JM. I hadn't noticed that. But I would add that's a taste thing since you can justify it by saying these color references. I can see reasons for going both ways myself.
No matter what it's worth considering at least despite what choice you make in the end.

[daliborsky]

Ronnie, we don't like them We LOVE THEM!

[santynus]

great job

[Vuk]

Great work.
Question: do You have any additional data about that "movie star" a/c? I'm quite intrigued.

[Ugo Crisponi]

Wonderful! Will buy this bok for sure

Grat job Ronnie!

[GiantFlyingRobots]

Awesome work!

Shows nicely the advantage of working in 3D. (or even 2.5)

Its always surprises me that more 3D artists don't post on this site. Actually when you look at the rest of the site its a wonder that it isnt predominately 3D not the other way around.

[Skyraider3D]

Thanks everyone for the comments! Glad you like it!


John, fair comment about the red being super-consistent. Indeed a variety of weathering would be good, though I wouldn't want to change the colour too much as it might suggest different colours were used for the same thing. It would also seem that the IJA red paint was very sturdy. Check out this Ki-27 recovery... it's clear to see which one colour survived over half a century on the bottom of the sea!

Similarly, 3/4 down the page: New Images February 2008


Vuk, the movie star was used in the filming of "Kato Hayabusa Sentotai" in 1943 and flown by Lt Hiroshi Sekiguchi, who later became an ace. Info straight from the book. The aircraft pretended to be a Buffalo intercepting Ki-21s in the movie, with 64th Sentai Ki-43s coming to the rescue. A photo of this machine, and a second, appears at the bottom of page 27 of FAotW nr.16.


GFR, I quite like how this forum has evolved into "the" aircraft profile art forum. For 3D planes you could always go to Military-Meshes.com.

Speaking of which, here's an "airshow photo" I made for fun:



Cheers!

Ronnie



PS. Just got myself a new domain... AviationArt.aero

[Vacajun]

Ronnie,

Just incredible work--A+++ (as usual)!!

A question for my own education: Did the Ki-44 wing leading edge really have forward sweep as shown in the plan view of the three-view??