I have lately become very intrigued by suspected or cancelled cold war military projects. This is especially true for suspected "black" aircraft such as the F-19 Ghostwriter, the Aurora, the A-12 Avenger II, and on the Russian end the MiG-37B Ferret-E stealth fighter. I used to have a Micro Machine of the MiG-37B when I was a kid and had long forgotten about it until I saw a model kit for the airplane on E-Bay. I immediately became fascinated by the Soviet fighter and went on the Internet to look up information on it. Some sources said the plane was made up by an Italian model company, but others gave engine specifications, armament and other such information. One piece of information popped up no matter where I went- the MiG-37 projoct was most likely cancelled for lack of funds when the Soviet Union Collasped in 1990.
I came up with the sunset idea with the plane's landing lights on one day when I was pondering what the sleek and mysterious plane would look like in flight. This image took me at least 8 or 9 hours from start to finish. While I was drawing the plane I downloaded the Soviet National Anthem and the theme to the movie Hunt for the Red October on MP3. I played these two songs while I was working to set the mood for the drawing. These songs are partially responsible for why the image turned out so dark and ominous looking. A ton of work went into this piece of artwork, but it turned out better than I originally imagined, so it was well worth it.
Type: Single seat fighter/ fighter-bomber
Powerplant: Two AL-31FU Thrust Vectoring engines delivering 8,100 lbs. of thrust each, 13,300lb each with afterburner
Wingspan: 33.5 ft
Length: 44.5 ft
Height: 10.75 ft
Weight: 34,000 lbs.
Maximum Speed: 3,300 mph
Climb: N/A
Ceiling N/A
Range: N/A
Armament: Two 30mm cannons, fire linked, 8 hardpoints located in four bays wich can carry AA-7, AA-9, AA-12 Air to Air Missiles or AS-7, AS-9, AS-10, AS-14 Air to Surface Missiles, various bombs
This drawing was made on 80lb. Strathmore medium surface drawing paper. I used 2B and 5H leads in a .05mm mechanical pencil for the pencil work. The pencil drawing was then scanned, cleaned up, and shadowed in Paint Shop Pro 3.11. The print out was on standard fax/copy paper and was colored with a combination of Crayola and Sanford Prisma Color colored pencils. The colored drawing was then scanned back into the computer. I created the background with Terragen 0.8.11. I added lighting and other effects to the image with Paint Shop Pro 7.02.
All text and original multimedia is © 2001 Daniel Keller. All other information is copyrighted by their respective owners.