Fritz’s next cartoon adventure is making good progress and should be completed this year. Here’s a screenshot, just so you know I’m not napping over here…

The Clothes Hangar keeps filling up with new planes. The most recent additions to the t-shirt wing of the gift shop are the B-29 Superfortress and the Hawker Hurricane…

I recently finished building a plastic model kit and have chronicled the experience as a warning to others. Here’s the blow by blow: http://fritzthefox.com/building_a_model_airplane.html

In 1947, the military gathered together some fearless pilots and had them fly into the hearts of thunderstorms in the name of research. Some flew sailplanes, while others flew specially equipped P-61 Black Widows, one of which became the subject of my latest artwork, The Thunderstorm Project, seen below. Many thanks to Dan Smith, a member of the project team, who was invaluable in researching this piece.

The art itself was a tremendous technical challenge for me. It began life as a B&W pen and ink piece, but my initial effort was disappointing. It did not help matters much that I had decided to attempt to do the clouds in airbrush, a tool with which I am familiar but had not picked up in over a decade. I don’t think I need to tell anyone how unforgiving ink is, which did an impressive job of humbling my inner Michelangelo almost immediately. I had made a high-resolution photograph of the art, though, and decided that I could salvage the work digitally. I made a new painting, this one in color, which was more successful but still not as dramatic as I had hoped. After some invaluable critique from a few other artists, I ended up with the piece you see now. (If you download or open this image in another window, you can zoom in for more detail…the original art itself can be printed poster size) Enjoy!

I’ve recently added the P-40 Warhawk to my line of Fritz the Fox warbird wear (which you can find in the gift shop). Below is the artwork I painted for the shirt. I had created this same illustration as a pen and ink piece last year, but was never really happy with it, so I scanned it in and used it for a photoshop paint-by-numbers project. It ended up with a pretty neat retro model kit box art look (which was purely accidental…I just wanted to play with Photoshop’s new brush tools.) I like how it turned out, so be on the look out for more retro-looking t-shirt art as I continue to celebrate the week of Veteran’s Day by painting more planes.

In honor of my new aviation hero, I have created a new cartoon and obligatory t-shirt design. If you feel moved to pay tribute to that most intrepid of astronauts, space bat, you can find it in the gift shop…

In a fit of resentment towards all things digital, I decided to dust off my old airbrush and see if I could remember how to use it. This picture was the result. Note the complete absence of airbrush. I had wanted to do a pure pen and ink plane with an airbrushed ink background, but midway through the picture I thought the plane might look better if I rendered it partly in pencil. It did, but it also meant there was no way I could apply frisket (an adhesive masking material) to it and thus my dream of breaking out the ol’ airbrush will have to wait for the next picture. Doh!

So here it is, with a hastily drawn pencil background…

I really wanted to use this photo in Fritz the Fox’s mockumentary (A History of Pilot Error) on the last DVD, but I could never locate the copyright holder to get permission to use it. So I will post it here instead, filled with the warm and fuzzy feeling that by doing so I am protected under fair comment. I imagine whomever took the photo has moved on to new hobbies by now, anyway…