For once, ARDHAN is publishing a “picture book”! As bizarre as it may seem, this is exactly what it is about since apart from a few rare pages of text, this work contains only drawings or, more precisely, "color profiles" of the majority of aircraft having served in the Navy between 1910 and 2010.
It was in Great Britain that in the early fifties, the first "color profiles" appeared. They were a direct consequence of the great nascent vogue of the time for plastic model airplanes and were originally intended for amateurs wishing to decorate their creations in a different way than those proposed by the manufacturers.
These first profiles, made by hand, were rather approximate, especially with regard to the colors. Over the years, with the discovery of the original texts governing the painting of military aircraft, the sets became closer and closer to historical truth.
In the 1990s, the appearance of home computing gave a whole new direction to what was to become an art. In addition to the constant evolution of the quality of the material, more and more powerful computer applications were made available. Admittedly, these tools had not been developed for the sole benefit of profile designers, but they were able to use them happily with often surprising results of detail and precision.
Beyond the initial purpose of these images, which was to provide assistance to model makers and thereby promote the sale of models, they began to be used to illustrate more general works such as aircraft monographs or histories of aircraft. 'units. And, over the years, they have even become essential. For more than 15 years, ARDHAN has used these profiles to illustrate many of its publications to the point of having produced more than 200 of them, relating to all periods and due, for the majority of them, to the immense talent of Pierre, André Tilley.
Given the large number of profiles already produced, bringing them together in a single book and publishing them, just "for the pleasure of the eyes" was a logical development. However, many devices had not yet been profiled and this gap had to be filled. Pierre Tilley therefore went back to work behind his screen but, given the magnitude of the work to be done, we had to call on other artists and this is how Patrice Gaubert, then Yann Le Gal, both also former pilots, have joined the ranks.
ARDHAN is now proud to offer its readers the final result of what, for more than three years, has been a real team effort.
In A4 landscape format. With 294 pages including presentation texts in French and more than 330 color profiles.
