Hey all,
An interesting piece of art went up on ebay recently. It is the preliminary sketch of the Air Raiders battle scene done by the artist Paul Alexander. The huge battle art was used by Hasbro for packaging and promotional purposes. There is no signature but I’m assuming he did this piece as he was the artist for the final piece and the seller said it came from his estate (Mr. Alexander passed away in 2021). It’s done in pencil but I’m not sure what the paper is, doesn’t appear to be tracing paper so it could just be ordinary, although large, sketch paper.
Here’s the seller’s notes:
Orig Pre Production Air Raiders Action Figures Pencil Art By Paul Alexander. 21 x 29.” I was lucky to acquire this item along with some other pencil art from the estate of Paul Alexander who is known as one of the best sci-fi artists of the 70s and 80s. His art is extremely rare. This item has great hand written notes including the red notes stating that he use pre production toy models to create this piece.
Here’s Paul’s notes too:
Finish pencil for a toy company -all the toys in the line in one battle scene. Product-accurate portrayals, constructed perspectives, worked from hand-made pre-production models of the toys.
I’m not 100% sure but it looks like he added a fuzzy note that says “Took Forever” in the lower right. (lol) I always wondered whether this was an easy project for a famous sci-fi illustrator like him to do or not. I guess we have the answer now. But I also wonder how many studies and drawings he did of each vehicle to get the look right. I would love to see those too although I doubt they survived. And what happened to the pre-production models that he used? Did they get sent back to Hasbro?
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Air Raiders 