As a follow-up to our gallery showcasing the High Hood as Art, here's another gallery of Jeep artwork in a variety of styles, all by the same artist, Hidemi Hishikawa, who lives in Yokosuka, Japan.
The illustration on Hishikawa's 2010 New Year's greeting card (above) is called "Impossible Dream." It shows his Jeep riding on a vintage train, with his daughter on the caboose. He writes, "How happy if such a trip could be done!"
The EB10 type electric locomotive was one of two built circa 1931, and in use until 1971. See a 1965 photo (100K JPEG) of EB101 in service, courtesy of rail.hobidas.com. The caboose was built in 1974, but in Japan as in North America, the caboose is a thing of the past.
Hishikawa's 2009 New Year's card had a theme many of us are familiar with: "Daughter who plays with the Jeep."
He says that among his happiest memories of the Jeep are memories from taking it to the sea with his daughter last summer. She likes to sit on the driver's seat, gripping the steering wheel and the shift knob, with the engine stopped of course. And she loves to eat grapes.
The 2008 card (70K JPEG) which we were missing until recently, shows the Jeep beside a traditional Japanese spa, with a beautiful sunset sky in the background.
These pieces are all based on the same 1963 J3R high hood built by Mitsubishi in Japan (right). The work seen here ranges from drawings to a 3D computer rendering, a woodcut, and action photographs.
The picture of children on a "Jeep hike" was drawn on the computer using Adobe Photoshop. The red signature on the left is Hidemi's nickname "Abura" which means "oil".
Kids love Jeeps! This illustration created in Softimage3D was for a 2004 New Year's card.
Abura's's right-hand-drive Jeep is a civilian model with chassis number 63J3-31015 and Hurricane engine number JH4-131589, but he likes the military look and has a blackout lamp and military-style canvas top.
The image of two soldiers of Japan's Self-Defense Force camping out with their Jeep, is done in a much more traditional medium -- a woodcut.
A 1996 silkscreen (120K JPEG) shows a driver relaxing in the moonlight, with a poem which Abura translates as, "I will run without giving it up because it starts without fail in the morning."
Back to the computer for a picture made using Adobe Illustrator, for a New Year's card in 2005 (right).
And another woodcut for New Year's 2006 (100K JPEG): note that it includes a three-wheeled Japanese truck called the "Midget", and a dog sleeping. (The dog is the animal symbol of 2006 in Japan).
For New Year's 2007 (120K JPEG) an Adobe Illustrator piece shows the Jeep with a classic Japanese shopping street in the background. Abura comments, "It is scenery being lost in Japan. The mountain drawn in the left side is Mt. Fuji, highest in Japan. It is an old tradition in Japan; having a dream of Mt. Fuji at the New Year is very happy occasion. An old Datsun Fire Patrol is in the fire station on the right side. The number of the license plate is 19, the new year's number in the Japanese era."
The Jeep also has the hood from a military version, which has some minor differences including a bulge on the right front to accommodate the position of the oil filter in the military J4.
The color Abura chose is a medium blue based on U.S. Navy fighter camo from World War II, using Tamiya model paint as a sample.
Here we see where Hishikawa gets his nickname "Oil". In this 2002 photo he's rebuilding the suspension. He overhauled the engine in 2004 and replaced the transmission with one he says came from a surplus fire engine.
Thanks to Hidemi Hishikawa for the artwork. -- Derek Redmond
See also the artistic Mitsubishi J53 Jeep Photos of Hideo Yoshii.
See more Mitsubishi Jeeps on The CJ3B Page.
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