Peter van Stigt

From a very young age, Peter van Stigt, born in Amsterdam in 1964, wanted to be a fighter pilot. However, his talents could not be found in Mathematics but in the artistic genes of his family. His father is his primary teacher in traditional art and graphic design. After an education at the Amsterdam Graphics College, Peter started out in the advertising world as a freelancer in 1986. Combining traditional art and his aviation passion was inevitable, and over the years, Peter focused purely on military aviation art. In 2005, he started teaching himself in the world of digital art. Since then, Peter has become one of the World’s leading digital aviation artists. Every now and then, he still draws and paints in the traditional way.

Peter has translated every single traditional technique, such as drawing, painting and airbrushing, into a digital technique on a computer screen instead of paper, board or canvas. The advantage is three-fold: 1) it works faster, one can always step back easily in the artistic programs used, such as ArtRage, TerraGen and Photoshop, 2) it’s completely clean, no paint residue or other waste left behind and no cleaning of brushes or an airbrush, 3) the digital image is immediately ready for printing in the state-of-the-art tradition of ‘computer-to-plate’. The workflow is virtually the same. Starting with a white ‘canvas’ on the computer screen and working from the ground up, drawing, filling up, painting, airbrushing and filtering/editing.

Peter’s mission is to capture the sheer dynamics of flight in a single still image. Get the audience strapped into the backseat of a plane and witness the ultimate rollercoaster first hand. He approaches his aviation art as aerial adventures that he experiences himself, based on sufficient airtime. Peter’s entire body of work depicts military aircraft. Not that his nature is a militaristic one, Peter is hooked on the aerodynamics, technology and flight performance of military planes. Since 2007, Peter produces his artwork solely based on his own inspiration, whenever he has the time and energy. Therefore, no commissions are accepted. Without that pressure to perform, both his creativity and productivity have improved considerably.

The international Airpower community in general and the Royal Netherlands Air Force in particular hold a special place in Peter’s heart. As a Gentleman’s Agreement any of his aviation art deemed relevant to the RNLAF may be used at their discretion. Next to producing aviation art, Peter is involved in several private foundations. Most notable are three jet fighter restoration projects: The Dutch Starfighter Foundation, restoring an F-104G, the Dutch NF-5 Flight, restoring an NF-5B and the Belgian Mirage 5 BD 09 Restoration Group. All these foundation volunteers are working very hard to get all three jet fighters in the air again. Lastly, Peter writes blogs and articles about the history and principles of Airpower.

(Aviation Artwork that can be purchased on various media can be found here:

https://fineartamerica.com/art/peter+van+stigt )

Digital aviation art 

Photography

Design

YouTube link to a video of my  RNLAF 312 Squadron Digital Bonzo bird leading an Elephant Walk and mass take-off from Volkel AB

🌍 Incredible Mass Formation Launch of the Volkel Vipers; 312 Squadron, Orange Jumper - YouTube

Traditional non-digital sketches

Car striping & fleetmarking

For several years in the mid-Nineties I also operated as a Nation-wide salesman, designer and applier of old-style car striping and fleetmarking for a company named Kersten Car Design. Car stripings I applied by hand, using rolls of vinyl striping tape of different colors and widths, 'sculpting' and cutting these on cars, designing the shapes as I went along, finishing off with heating the cut ends with a hair dryer. The fleetmarking letterings on company cars, trucks, boats, signs and shopping windows were of course pre-designed and pre-cut. I applied everything in 'dry' fashion, i.e. not using water and soap in order to move the designs around. Nine out of ten times, when you see a cartoon, it was designed and drawn by Yours Truly, scanned in and cut out of vinyl. These here are photos of photos.

That's all, folks