It's nice when the work is not only fun to do, but appreciated by connoisseurs... :)
Although I'm mostly into photo-manipulation, I have come to appreciate the profiling side of things to a certain extent. In most cases I work from existing plans which I manipulate in pretty much the same fashion as the photos, but on occasion I DID create profiles or three-views from scratch. Anyway, today I thought I should treat you to...
Some unusual profiles (Part 1)
Boeing Belphegor US Army transport
Here is something I had on the side for a few weeks, the
Boeing Belphegor. As you can see, this is a cross between the Polish PZL M-15
Belphegor and the Boeing CH-47
Chinook. I don't think the scales of the two match in real life... As usual, consider this as a marrying of shapes rather than a possible real-life combination...
Grumman Manxcat fighter-bomber
What exactly do you call a cat without a tail? That's right, a manx cat. Well, here is the Grumman Manxcat... a tailless fighter-bomber.
Westland-Delanne Weymouth I
Is there anything weirder that the real-life Westland-Delanne P.12 prototype? Well, yes, a float version thereof!!
Vought ES-5A Kingfisher II
Another "forgotten" piece from last year: the
Vought ES-5A Kingfisher II, a multipurpose aircraft combining the Electronic Warfare and ASW missions. The original, real-life Vought OS2U
Kingfisher was an observation/scout floatplane series of the 1930s. It seemed logical, therefore, that this new type should be called the
Kingfisher II...
Martin-Northrop XP-65 Meteor
I was taking a look at Logan Hartke's excellent Martin XB-51 and Northrop XP-61F color profiles, and the silly idea of combining them into one single aircraft dawned on me... Of course the end result owes very little to each of the original designs, but it's mostly made of bits and pieces cut, reshaped, resized from Logan's artwork. About 40 layers in all, and I accidentally merged them on saving! Needless to say that was most frustrating... (full story of the XP-65 can be read here
http://bispro.deviantart.com/gallery/24200217?offset=24#/d45qw6c).
Royal Navy Fairey Gumbo I
The
Fairey Gumbo was developed using Bagera3005's profile of the real-life
Gannet as a basis.
Grushin DSh Dvoinoi Tandem
Going through a forum topic on the Soviet Kalinin K-12 prototype, in which the Grushin Sh, or
Tandem was also discussed, I was inspired to create a development of the latter called the Grushin DSh
Dvoinoi Tandem (Double Tandem).
Sud-Ouest (S.N.C.A.S.O.) SO.2000 Roussette
Another German jet spin-off was the
S.N.C.A.S.O. (Sud-Ouest) S.O. 2000 Roussette, a rocket plane evaluated by the French Aéronavale in 1946 and derived from a wartime Messerschmitt study. Please note that the word "roussette" in French refers to both a variety of shark and a variety of bat, a fitting play on words for a bat-like and offensive naval type.
USMC Ryan XN2R-1 Fireblaze
When the US Navy and Marine Corps were looking for an advanced trainer, both piston and jet configurations were considered. Ryan submitted their
Model 33 Fireblaze, which was evaluated by the USMC in 1946-47 as the
XN2R-1. The US Navy prefered to go the piston route and opted for North American's XSN2J-1, the forerunner of the
Trojan.
Vought A-11A Corsair III
Although the U.S. Marines rejected the Vought
Corsair II, they showed interest in a reworked version that featured two dorsal air intakes instead of the wide ventral one. Procured as the
Vought A-11A Corsair III, it entered service in 1981 (NOTE: the A-11A also appears earlier in this thread in photo form).
Lockheed Martin/Aermacchi AL379 StrikeStar
Glanini's profiles of the Aermacchi M.346 on the What If forum inspired me to create this elongated version, the
Lockheed Martin/Aermacchi AL379 StrikeStar.
Nord Aviation 4500 Noralcor
The
Nord Aviation 4500 Noralcor was a lengthened, four-wing derivative of the famed
Noratlas to transport freight and paratroopers. The Nord 4501 variant was for freight only. The 4502 was a in-flight refueling variant (NOTE: caption wrongly refers to the plan as depicting the Nord 4501 when it should read "4500").
Kaiser-Fleetwings XO2K-1 Seabird II
A little something I did by modifying an existing design into an economical 1944 U.S. Navy observation type, the
Kaiser-Fleetwings XO2K-1 Seabird (the
Seabird name had been previously used by that company for a commercial flying boat). Can you tell what I started from? (I haven't changed it much...).
Henschel Hs 626 Narwal
The
Hs 626 Narwal was an experimental aircraft of the wartime Luftwaffe made up of two existing Henschel designs blended into one, the Hs 129 and the P.75 (with the cockpit of a Messerschmitt Me 163 added for a more advanced look). This pusher aircraft with contra-rotating propellers was meant to carry two target drones, one under each wing.
Sikorsky YCH-60Z Stealth Hawk
Following the discussions on various forums about the mysterious "black" helicopter that crashed over Bin Laden's final abode, this was my little contribution to what a stealthy mod of the
Black Hawk could look like... I used a profile that was found at militaryphotos.net as a basis. I modified the nose's shape, made the landing gear retractable and removed as many appendices as possible for cleaner streamlining. I also added the tail fairing at the rear and blended the tail unit a bit more into the dorsal spine. This image sort of lived a life of its own in the weeks to follow as it was republished on various sites along other artist's views of the same.
