Monday, September 14, 2009

Historical September

This month signifies the 70th anniversary of the start of WWII. I consider myself a huge history buff and have been lucky enough to work on the subject quite often. Here are a few pieces I did on different aspects of the war. More historical work can been seen here:

Kamikaze Warefare

I love to start with this piece when sharing historical work with friends and history buffs. When I proposed this, I never realized the amount of research it would take to create. I knew from the getgo I wanted to diagram the tactics of a kamikaze attack, from an above-the-battle perspective. What I didn't know was early in the war most kamikaze details were kept hush-hush by the government so moms and pops at home wouldn't worry about their sons at sea (at least this is what I was told). What resulted was very little in our history books. I researched countless hours for a reliable source. After completion I took a copy to the Intrepid Museum here in NYC to speak with their experts for an educated eye. Luckily I also got to meet a few WWII veterans who gave tours in the museum, who experienced this first hand. I am still humbled by their stories.



Battle for Iwo Jima

A few weeks before the anniversary of this battle, I read the book 'Flags of Our Fathers', and a pon completion I came up with the idea for this infographic. The very next day I proposed this piece and it was a go. I had to reach as far as the Army Corp of Engineers to find details on enemy strong points (to draw the hill c
utaway), but I really think it paid off. Eventually if I would love to do a cut-away piece on Mt. Suribachi alone, but I'm overall very happy with how this came out. I hope readers feel the same.



Battle of the Bulge
My main focus with this battle was to illustrate the map and battle ground timeline to tell the story. I anchored the piece with a historical look at war deaths with a Bulge specific chart, to show the scale, speed and toll of this attack. The entire piece was put together in about 4 days. I received a few nice emails after this was published from vets and family of vets expressing their interests and experiences, which really made the piece special to me.