Axis & Allies box Image

The game of A&A was launched in the 80's and since then has been played by thousands of players all over the world.

The game's box is huge, beautiful and the main image evokes dramatically a great conflict that started in 1939 and ended in 1945. It is a great hand painted composition and yet it lacks one important element: the Axis characters and their relative flags (only the Japanese flag is visible in the original image).

I took this as a personal project and started to re-do my own version. It was both a pleasure and fun to work with all the imagery at my disposal from the Internet. History is fascinating and history plus Photoshop is just a blast!

The original box of Axis and Allies with its beautiful illustration

The composition

This has been the most beautiful task of the entire project. Hundreds of thousands of images ready to be used, waiting there on the web, in the web to be taken and put into the final composition.

I wrote down extensive lists of all the objects I would have wanted in my final composition.

The Research.

This has been the most beautiful task of the entire project. Hundreds of thousands of images ready to be used, waiting there on the web, in the web to be taken and put into the final composition.

Endless solutions. Research is compelling and one could easily get lost in the maze of possibilities.

Searching for the main historical characters of WWII made me realise how little I knew about the conflict. In my final image I wanted two different huge blocks to face one another.

Step by step how I created the final image in an animated Gif.

The world map as a global theatre of war.

Politicians are placed beneath their state flags

Commanders and Generals added. Note that in the original illustration only the political figures are shown, with no regards to the generals and the units (land, naval and airborne) that fought in the conflict. In this my work is really different from the original concept of the imagery.

A 'first layer' of objects is added to the composition.

A 'second layer' of objects is added to the composition.

The initial and final years of the conflict (slightly visible on purpose) are added to the left and right of the composition.

Final touch is the gradient and other small regulations added to bring out some details.

The whole animation step by step (1.3M)