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Tiger of the Sky

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Published:
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Description

Comments:
I love anything related to aviation, especially classic and modern military aircraft. This particular aircraft is a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter which served mostly in the South West Pacific and Pacific Ocean theaters during 1941–42.
Painted the P-40 with photoshop and using a photo as reference. The trick was to paint it very very large then shrink it down... and watch all your flaws vanish!
Thre is a few noticable flaws I need to go backa nd touch up... like near the tail above the number "4" the paint job looks too flat... seem thing in other parts... oi!
Tools:
Stocks, Photoshop CS2/CS3, PC, & Wacom Intuos3

Credits:
:iconnight-fate-stock: Background: [link]

History:
Flying Tigers was the nickname of the 1st American Volunteer Group (AVG) that operated within the Chinese Air Force in 1941 and 1942. In essence a private military contractor, the volunteers were former United States Army (USAAF), Navy (USN), and Marine Corps (USMC) pilots and ground crew, recruited under Presidential sanction and commanded by Claire Chennault. The AVG consisted of three fighter squadrons that trained in Burma prior to the American entry into World War II to fight against Japanese forces.

The Tigers' shark-faced fighters remain among the most recognizable of any individual combat aircraft of World War II, and they demonstrated innovative tactical victories when the news in the U.S. was filled with little more than stories of defeat at the hands of the Japanese forces.

The group first saw combat on 20 December 1941, 12 days after Pearl Harbor (local time). The Flying Tigers achieved notable success during the lowest period of the war for American forces, and gave hope to Americans that they would eventually succeed against the Japanese. The Flying Tigers were credited with destroying almost 300 aircraft with a loss of only 14 pilots on combat missions. The AVG was disbanded in July 1942, to be replaced by the U.S. Army 23rd Fighter Group, which was later absorbed into the U.S. 14th Air Force with General Chennault as commander. The 23rd Group went on to achieve similar combat success, while retaining the nose art and mascot of the volunteer unit.
Image size
9000x6000px 19.19 MB
© 2008 - 2024 Alegion
Comments21
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FellaUK's avatar
amazing. im looking for someone to do a halifax bomber, we are putting togeather a museum peice for my grandad who piloted a halifax during ww2, unfortunatly out of the raid of 400 aircraft he was in the 3% that got shot down, the german pilot is still alive to tell the story.

The picture will be hung in a special place above the memoribilia, about Fred Harris (my grandad) and the other crew that lost there life and also in a book we writing about the whole episode.