
"Come on...just a little more..."
Jax let out an impatient snort and instinctively gripped the control stick tighter as she lined up the wounded F611 Brigand up in her sights. The mangled rear turret that the Brigands were infamous for would do it no favours now. She could feel the aggressive desire and excitement for a kill pumping through her veins and fought to hold it back, to cool her instincts. It was something that all shark pilots had to contend with - that innate desire to sink their teeth into their prey in whatever form they may take.
"A little more..."
She pulled back on the throttle and slammed her foot on the right rudder pedal as the Brigand began to bank. It gave her just that needed split-second of extra maneuverability to place her sights just ahead of the fleeing aircraft. The shark aviator smiled tightly as she unleashed a steady stream of bullets from the double pair of linked machine guns that gave her P21 Devastator Mk II such a fearsome bite.
Gotcha!
Shrapnel and smoke immediately exploded outwards from the Brigand as the well-timed maelstrom of lead struck the cockpit and shredded the nose. The fatally-wounded Brigand began to dip and then spiral downwards as the dead or dying pilot lost control.
"Colonel Tashwood, Valkyr here. Scratch the last of the pirates."
The smile spread to a toothy grin as Major Jax Valkyr of Sharktooth Aviation Security gunned the throttle and brought her Devastator into a sweeping and triumphant loop. With its escort eliminated, that only left the zep. The converted - and stolen - cargo zeppelin was just one of hundreds that traversed between the major cities and hubs of commerce of the patchwork of feuding independent nations of varying size, wealth, and power that had taken the place of the continent-spanning United States. The Wall Street Crash had been the final nail in the coffin of the splintering nascent superpower. WIth the collapse of the rail and road networks either through financial ruin, sabotage, or just plain neglect as the newborn nations struggled to recover economically, the population had looked to the sky as the primary means of travel and transportation. Just as it had in the golden age of sail, piracy and opportunism followed in the wake of this golden age of the airplane. To combat the menace of modern-day air pirates, private aviation security companies had been formed by former Great War or air militia veterans. Companies such as Sharktooth Aviation Security.
"Gotcha, Valkyr. Let's bring down the gas-bag."
"Roger."
Sporadic and feeble anti-air fire peppered out from the airship as it banked ponderously in an effort to render itself a more difficult target to hit. Colonel Kisha Tashwood shook her head as she too felt the renewed thrill of the oncoming kill. The green-haired tiger shark reached down and flicked the switch that would arm her plane's 'Magnetic Missile'. An ingenious weapon and recent invention, the gauss detector in the missile would home in on large concentrations of ferrous metal within its narrow cone of detection - concentrations such as the metal frame of the rigid airship. She fixed the zeppelin in her sights and squeezed the missile firing trigger.
"Missile away!"
"Missile away!"
Jax's voice crackled over the radio as she too fired off her own mag-missile. Contrails streamed in the wake of the primitive air-to-air missile as it homed in on the doomed zeppelin. Both sharks now killed their throttle and counted down the seconds until the missiles reached their target.
Explosions and gouts of smoke-heavy flame heralded that moment as the warheads detonated squarely in the centre of the lighter-than-air dirigible. The armoured plating that had been hammered onto the more vulnerable areas of its hull did little to help it as it buckled and then was ripped apart. The two ragged-ended halves streamed cargo, equipment, and the corpses of its piratical crew as they began to drift away from one another, propelled by the kinetic wash of the explosion and plunge groundward in the wake of the tumbling contents that had been disgorged.
"One more pirate zep down, and a tidy little sum owed."
The bounties offered by Free Colorado to pirate-hunters would never make them rich with the fortune that they both desired, but for now, it was enough to keep them flying and fighting.
And that was all that truly mattered.
Another week, another fine aviation-themed commission from tales_foxdale. This time featuring my good friend kishatashwood and her shark, alongside my battlesharksona, Jax Valkyr and a piece themed for and inspired by one of my favourite dieselpunk fictional settings, that of Crimson Skies. For those that don't know this sadly defunct cinematic alt-1930's franchise that featured originally in an old FASA tabletop game, and then found greater recognition through two games, one for PC and one for the original Xbox, I urge you to take a look through the wiki and certainly through the mood-setting video I'll link to taken from the intro from the original 2000 PC arcade flight sim. I'd sorely love to see it make a comeback in some fashion, perhaps in the way that Battletech is doing now so with HBS, those who have successfully resurrected Shadowrun in PC rpg form with Returns, Dragonfall and Hong Kong over the past few years. But yeah, anyway, Tales has done an amazing job yet again and captured the spirit of Crimson Skies in the slightly-fantastical aircraft designs prevalent in that fictional alt-past and also with our sharks and their very appropriate uniforms.
Mood video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i23KRvtWLx8
Jax Valkyr & Background Story © Myself
Kisha Tashwood ©
Artwork ©
Crimson Skies © Microsoft Game Studios.
Jax let out an impatient snort and instinctively gripped the control stick tighter as she lined up the wounded F611 Brigand up in her sights. The mangled rear turret that the Brigands were infamous for would do it no favours now. She could feel the aggressive desire and excitement for a kill pumping through her veins and fought to hold it back, to cool her instincts. It was something that all shark pilots had to contend with - that innate desire to sink their teeth into their prey in whatever form they may take.
"A little more..."
She pulled back on the throttle and slammed her foot on the right rudder pedal as the Brigand began to bank. It gave her just that needed split-second of extra maneuverability to place her sights just ahead of the fleeing aircraft. The shark aviator smiled tightly as she unleashed a steady stream of bullets from the double pair of linked machine guns that gave her P21 Devastator Mk II such a fearsome bite.
Gotcha!
Shrapnel and smoke immediately exploded outwards from the Brigand as the well-timed maelstrom of lead struck the cockpit and shredded the nose. The fatally-wounded Brigand began to dip and then spiral downwards as the dead or dying pilot lost control.
"Colonel Tashwood, Valkyr here. Scratch the last of the pirates."
The smile spread to a toothy grin as Major Jax Valkyr of Sharktooth Aviation Security gunned the throttle and brought her Devastator into a sweeping and triumphant loop. With its escort eliminated, that only left the zep. The converted - and stolen - cargo zeppelin was just one of hundreds that traversed between the major cities and hubs of commerce of the patchwork of feuding independent nations of varying size, wealth, and power that had taken the place of the continent-spanning United States. The Wall Street Crash had been the final nail in the coffin of the splintering nascent superpower. WIth the collapse of the rail and road networks either through financial ruin, sabotage, or just plain neglect as the newborn nations struggled to recover economically, the population had looked to the sky as the primary means of travel and transportation. Just as it had in the golden age of sail, piracy and opportunism followed in the wake of this golden age of the airplane. To combat the menace of modern-day air pirates, private aviation security companies had been formed by former Great War or air militia veterans. Companies such as Sharktooth Aviation Security.
"Gotcha, Valkyr. Let's bring down the gas-bag."
"Roger."
Sporadic and feeble anti-air fire peppered out from the airship as it banked ponderously in an effort to render itself a more difficult target to hit. Colonel Kisha Tashwood shook her head as she too felt the renewed thrill of the oncoming kill. The green-haired tiger shark reached down and flicked the switch that would arm her plane's 'Magnetic Missile'. An ingenious weapon and recent invention, the gauss detector in the missile would home in on large concentrations of ferrous metal within its narrow cone of detection - concentrations such as the metal frame of the rigid airship. She fixed the zeppelin in her sights and squeezed the missile firing trigger.
"Missile away!"
"Missile away!"
Jax's voice crackled over the radio as she too fired off her own mag-missile. Contrails streamed in the wake of the primitive air-to-air missile as it homed in on the doomed zeppelin. Both sharks now killed their throttle and counted down the seconds until the missiles reached their target.
Explosions and gouts of smoke-heavy flame heralded that moment as the warheads detonated squarely in the centre of the lighter-than-air dirigible. The armoured plating that had been hammered onto the more vulnerable areas of its hull did little to help it as it buckled and then was ripped apart. The two ragged-ended halves streamed cargo, equipment, and the corpses of its piratical crew as they began to drift away from one another, propelled by the kinetic wash of the explosion and plunge groundward in the wake of the tumbling contents that had been disgorged.
"One more pirate zep down, and a tidy little sum owed."
The bounties offered by Free Colorado to pirate-hunters would never make them rich with the fortune that they both desired, but for now, it was enough to keep them flying and fighting.
And that was all that truly mattered.
Another week, another fine aviation-themed commission from tales_foxdale. This time featuring my good friend kishatashwood and her shark, alongside my battlesharksona, Jax Valkyr and a piece themed for and inspired by one of my favourite dieselpunk fictional settings, that of Crimson Skies. For those that don't know this sadly defunct cinematic alt-1930's franchise that featured originally in an old FASA tabletop game, and then found greater recognition through two games, one for PC and one for the original Xbox, I urge you to take a look through the wiki and certainly through the mood-setting video I'll link to taken from the intro from the original 2000 PC arcade flight sim. I'd sorely love to see it make a comeback in some fashion, perhaps in the way that Battletech is doing now so with HBS, those who have successfully resurrected Shadowrun in PC rpg form with Returns, Dragonfall and Hong Kong over the past few years. But yeah, anyway, Tales has done an amazing job yet again and captured the spirit of Crimson Skies in the slightly-fantastical aircraft designs prevalent in that fictional alt-past and also with our sharks and their very appropriate uniforms.
Mood video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i23KRvtWLx8
Jax Valkyr & Background Story © Myself
Kisha Tashwood ©

Artwork ©

Crimson Skies © Microsoft Game Studios.
Category Artwork (Digital) / All
Species Shark
Gender Multiple characters
Size 1280 x 896px
File Size 150.8 kB
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