My first attempt with colored pencils As early as 1980, Uwe W. Jack began his first attempts to make color drawings of airplanes for a magazine article. These were drawn on paper with colored pencils. It was a particular challenge to achieve the historical color tones by mixing several colored pencils - which unfortunately was often not successful. Three examples out of a dozen made are shown here. All drawings on this page are not to scale and copyrighted!
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Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6 (or G-14) Flight school aircraft, end of 1944 filmed for the German newsreel in flight.
Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6 (or G-14) Flight school aircraft, found by US forces in May 1945.
Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-5 Flight school aircraft, registration PL+KR. In 1944 photographed with “yellow 65” and “black 17”.
In the computer age After some experiments with different graphics software in the 1990s just for fun, I put painting color profiles aside for about ten years. For articles in the German FliegerRevue magazine, I created color drawings with CorelDraw, colored them in this software and reworked the drawings with Photoshop. Shadows and highlights were added there.
Arado Ar 96 B Liaison aircraft of the Hungarian Air Force, 2nd Air Brigade, at the eastern front in autumn 1942.
Fiat C.R.42 Hungarian Air Force, Fighter Squadron 1/4, at the eastern front in autumn 1941.
Heinkel He 58 Mail service aircraft, based on the steam liner “Bremen”. Launched by catapult, the He 58 was build in only one example and flew for the first time in 1930. Although authors have long argued about whether the plane was painted red or blue, it was painted yellow, as a close examination of photos shows.
The art of painting with a computer I keep creating the drawings with CorelDraw. But all colored work is now done with Photoshop. This gives me more freedom in the color tones.
Henschel Hs 123 Still in pre-war camouflage, this Hs 123 was flow as a flight trainer at the flight school Werder/Havel near Berlin, in 1940.
Messerschmitt Me 163 B Rocket fighter of 1. Jagdgeschwader JG 400 in November 1944, based at Stargard airfield.
Messerschmitt Bf 110 E Zerstörergeschwader ZG 76, spring 1942. Note longer tail in which an inflatable boat was housed.
Messerschmitt Bf 110 G Night fighter of 11./NJG 1 with serial 720410 in the summer of 1944 in the Netherlands. Flown by Martin Drewes, whose Knights Cross after 25 victories plus additional 20 victories are noted on the fin.
Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1 Aircraft of III. Gruppe of Ergänzungsjagdgeschwader EJG 2 at Lechfeld in April 1945. This unit re-trained pilots to fly jets. The white S stands for “Schulung” (training).
Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1 Belonging to the famous Jagdverband JV 44, this aircraft was found at Salzburg, Austria in May 1945.
Messerschmitt Me 262 B-1a Serial 111643, B3+ZM, this two-seat trainer was flown by Kampfgeschwader KG(J) 54 in Bohemia in April 1945. The aircraft obviously had an accident in which the nose had to be replaced.
Reichenberg Re 3 Trainer version for the piloted suicide aircraft Reichenberg (modified V-1 flying bomb), found by british troops at Tramm in central Germany.
Blohm & Voss Bv 138 C Flown by 3./SAGr 130 (Sea Reconnaissance Group), this aircraft (coded P4+HL from Transportstaffel Nord) was discovered at the war’s end at Copenhagen, Denmark. It is most likely the aircraft that was sent to pick up the messenger with Hitler’s last will in the night of May 1st to 2nd from the Havel river in Berlin. Because he did not know the correct password, the pilot refused to let him aboard.
Classic painting with oil paints Since I was not satisfied with the colored pencil drawings, I tried to create color profiles with oil paints. It always took a very long time and the results were even worse. After watching Bob Ross's painting class on television, I had the idea to paint airplanes in flight with oils. Until the end of the 1980s I produced a few paintings. But I have to admit that I'm not a gifted oil artist - that's how I stopped this hobby.
Klemm L 25 This aircraft was transported with Zeppelin LZ129 to South-America on a promotion tour.
Sack AS-6 Homebuild circular aircraft designed by Arthur Sack, with one prototype build at Brandis near Leipzig. Tests in 1944 showed, that this vehicle was completely unstable and never made it into the air.
Junkers Ju 287 Third prototype of the Luftwaffe’s last jet bomber project. Was not completed and parts destroyed at the war’s end. A modification was build and flown in the Soviet Union as the EF 131.
Info graphics For special purposes it is necessary to make explanatory drawings. Some of my publications would not work without such drawings.
Messerschmitt Me 262 B trainer and night fighter Many people believe that a 262 night fighter is simply a trainer with added Radar device. This is not true. For the nicht fighter the rear cockpit was shortened and all controls removed. This made it possible to install an additional tank behind the Radar operator.
Behne Buzz-Flyer In April 1939 Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Behne filed a patent for a one man flying device. Based on the priciple of the Voith- Schneider-Propeller used by ships up to today, German paratroopers should be able to fly directly into heavily defended positions with this device. No flight test is known.