“Since my childhood I’ve been a huge fan of model kit box art from painters like Roy Cross or Roy Huxley, to name two very gifted UK artists,” explains German illustrator Jack Moik . “I collected these box-top paintings of ships and planes and it always fascinated me how these painters achieved action and adventure in these little masterpieces. At the same time I’m a fan of Sorayama’s art and his wonderful skills of capturing female beauty. I wondered how I could marry these two different styles, so I came up with the idea to make a warbird pin-up come to life. I started with a pretty rough kind of layout to find the right angle, colours and mood. That took me about three hours. After that, I resized the layout to the desired size, which is often about 6400x4100pix.”
“The biggest problem with this painting was that the legs of the woman are painted on the plane but the torso, arms and face should come out of it three dimensionally.”
“After experimenting with different colours, hues and light I realised that it might work if I put some panel lines, dirt, rust and scratches over her painted legs to make it more connected to the plane.”
“This is the first layout, done in three hours. I used just five layers, so it was much easier to play around with and find the right angle and colours. For the man I used a reference photo from a friend, which I took spontaneously. I also had some reference for the woman, but painted most parts from my mind as there was no exact reference available.”