“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.”
“I also had some references for the P-38 Lightning plane, but they didn’t all match, so I used a little die-cast model to find the right angle. Then I changed the positions of characters, hands and brush, adding more details to clothing, hair and airplane. I made the corners and plane darker and added more light on the characters.”
“Almost there, [I added] more panel lines and patina on the plane, changed the hairstyle on her and painted a lot more detail overall. Detailing is the most time consuming [part of] my work, I must admit; I’m addicted to details so the last ten hours was meticulous work on patina, hair and folds. I tried to give her hairstyle a slightly Forties look, but it looks too plain for my taste. So finally I made it a bit more timeless, as this shouldn’t be a historic piece, rather it’s a daydream.”