Airplanes: A Smithsonian Coloring Book

As seen in PREVIEWS: 

“The greatest aircraft of all time are lifting off again! The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and IDW Publishing present a fascinating new coloring book that provides a beautiful and informative tour through the high-flying world of airplanes.

With this exquisitely designed coloring book, aviation lovers of all ages can soar through the skies with some of the most recognized and revered airplanes from the collection at the National Air and Space Museum. Guided by museum experts and the thrilling artistry of John Pirtel, meet the 1903 Wright Flyer, the LockheedJohn Pirtel Vega 5-B, Northrop Gamma Polar Star, McDonnell F-4S Phantom II, Concorde, and many more. These detailed pen and ink illustrations invite you to strap in and experience thrilling scenes of these aircraft in action, which fans of airplanes, coloring books, and aviation history can unlock with their own creativity.

Each page of Airplanes: A Smithsonian Coloring Book not only stands alone as a work of art, but is also accompanied by brief and fascinating insights from the museum’s Aeronautics experts about each aircraft, ensuring that time spent coloring is also time spent learning.”

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I sought out the Smithsonian work early on in it’s conception at IDW- the first of a proposed series was AIRPLANES… This book for, me started out as a traditional pen/brush and ink on paper- but we found the clean up was taking too long in  pre-production that I switched to digital inking – this definitely sped up the process. I still draw with a pencil and paper- there was no change in my prep to final art, I just switched my inking to the digital process. The hardest part, outside the learning curve (this is my first ever digitally inked project), was to match the digital style with my already completed traditional inks which were on some pieces.

I am a history buff, so I thoroughly enjoyed creating this book.