[planenuts]

"Shigeo Koike is the premier aviation illustrator. His works, the products of many years of labor, are presented every year as box art and calendar illustrations and draw the admiration of a large number of aircraft fans. They depict in a realistic style a fascinating world featuring expanses of transparent space and flying airplanes enveloped in light."

Fantastic stuff! Go to this site: www.ne.jp/asahi/airplane/museum/Ecl-pln2.html

[Cardinal]

Thanks for the link Planenuts - that artwork is absolutely stunning .

[Moparman]

Planenuts... I found your posting during a search for information on Mr. Shigeo Koike. Do you know of a way to contact this artist? Amazingly, I have stumbled across an image of one of his paintings, and the aircraft is actually the very one my grandfather served on during WWII. He created a painting of a Consolidated B-24L Liberator for Hasegawa model company, depicting a black B-24 flying over the ocean. The nose art, tail insignia, aircraft registry number and color all match my grandfather's plane. The name of the plane is "Lady June II" and was part of the 868th Bombardment Group in the 13th Army Air Corps. The plane is black because the 868th was called the "Snooper Squadron". They performed night bombing raids and were equipped with radar.

I desperately want to find out if there's a possibility of getting a lithograph or copy of the original painting, so I can present it to my grandfather for his birthday. Hasegawa's American distributor is Dragon Models, based out of California. I have contacted Dragon Models to see if they have an email contact for Hasegawa in Tokyo. No response on that just yet.

I'm not sure how many (if any) of Mr. Koike's paintings were ever made into lithographs. But, whatever the cost... I simply must contact him and find out if there is a possibility of getting something worthy of framing.

Here is a link to a page that shows the image I'm speaking about... B-24J LIBERATOR

If you, or anyone else involved with models, knows of a way to get in touch with Mr. Koike... I would be deeply grateful for any information that would put me closer to achieving this personal quest.

Thank you and God Bless.

~ Jason

[skydriver]

Jason/Moparman, might I suggest you print the page with your grandfather's plane and take it to one of your local Universities or High Schools to see if they have a Japanese language course, or see if there is American Japanese chamber of commerce in your city. You might find that someone can translate the page and give you the information your looking for on the possibility of it being in print for you to purchase.

Good luck.

[flyXwire]

I'm an adoring fan of Shigeo Koike's aviation artwork. I've saved all his Hasegawa kit box arts since from the late 70s! Extremely talented this fellow is.

[smartd]

Originally Posted by Moparman

Planenuts... I found your posting during a search for information on Mr. Shigeo Koike. Do you know of a way to contact this artist? Amazingly, I have stumbled across an image of one of his paintings, and the aircraft is actually the very one my grandfather served on during WWII. He created a painting of a Consolidated B-24L Liberator for Hasegawa model company, depicting a black B-24 flying over the ocean. The nose art, tail insignia, aircraft registry number and color all match my grandfather's plane. The name of the plane is "Lady June II" and was part of the 868th Bombardment Group in the 13th Army Air Corps. The plane is black because the 868th was called the "Snooper Squadron". They performed night bombing raids and were equipped with radar.

I desperately want to find out if there's a possibility of getting a lithograph or copy of the original painting, so I can present it to my grandfather for his birthday. Hasegawa's American distributor is Dragon Models, based out of California. I have contacted Dragon Models to see if they have an email contact for Hasegawa in Tokyo. No response on that just yet.

I'm not sure how many (if any) of Mr. Koike's paintings were ever made into lithographs. But, whatever the cost... I simply must contact him and find out if there is a possibility of getting something worthy of framing.

Here is a link to a page that shows the image I'm speaking about... B-24J LIBERATOR

If you, or anyone else involved with models, knows of a way to get in touch with Mr. Koike... I would be deeply grateful for any information that would put me closer to achieving this personal quest.

Thank you and God Bless.

~ Jason

That is so cool. I hope you manage to find a copy for your Grandfather.

[smartd]

Originally Posted by flyXwire

I'm an adoring fan of Shigeo Koike's aviation artwork. I've saved all his Hasegawa kit box arts since from the late 70s! Extremely talented this fellow is.

I collected all the old Frog kit artwork. I never thought of it as being available as large size prints or of any great consequence in the world of aviation art I just liked it.
Learn something new everyday.

[flyXwire]

Originally Posted by smartd

I collected all the old Frog kit artwork. I never thought of it as being available as large size prints or of any great consequence in the world of aviation art I just liked it.
Learn something new everyday.

You can easily blow up those old artworks as large size prints at any FedEx/Kinkos color copy machines only for your collecting purposes, mind you.

[Cruver Collecter]

You definitely can spend quite a bit of time just looking at these pictures. Truly impressive work!

[mapleflag]

Moparman,
there is a site called Babelfish,here is the link AltaVista - Babel Fish Translation
when you are on the webpage for this artist copy the text in the address box at the top of the page, rt click "copy"
paste that address in the lower box at babel fish -Translate this web page- and select japanese to english translation
then click translate- the page and any linked pages are translated- I noticed at the bottom of the page is a selection button for questionaire.

I hope this helps
Babel fish is an excellent tool when trying to find info in other than english language sites