Warbird Information Exchange

I'm conducting a stylistic experiment for my t-shirt art, and I was wondering which look you WIXer's prefer of the two images below?

More realistic treatment?



OR a more stylized, graphic treatment?



Any comments welcome.

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What is red, furry and on your six?

The first one!

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Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

Actually, I would want a combination of the two.
I like the more realistic depiction of the airplane, but would prefer a simple graphic text, rather than the 'dimensional' lettering.

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Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.

I like both of them.....

I agree with Shrike...but another thing to consider might be to put general markings on the aircraft...to avoid favoring a specific restored aircraft.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

The realistic treatment.

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P-51, The Cadillac of the Sky!

1st one. They both are good!

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Fly Fast Make Noise!

Both would look good , however a Spitfire would look so much better

That was part of my thinking when it came to the graphic treatment. It also lends itself better to alternative printing methods. For example, this F-86 Sabre shirt in my t-shirt shop uses a special process that prints the aluminum parts of the aircraft with a shiny, metallic silver. The process limits me to three colors, though.



For the Mustang, I'm offering both designs, but for new designs I am trying to decide which direction is best to go. Here's another example:

Realistic (with the background in the lettering, another stylistic trademark of this approach):



Or stylized:

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What is red, furry and on your six?

#2 for me. as to your printing process i'd take into account which 1 is going to hold up better in the laundry, your customers will appreciate that & will buy w/ confidence.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Regarding printing process...I've found that printing processes have come a long way over the years and just about any process holds up pretty well. Silkscreening retains its vibrance until the bitter end, but it cracks over time and doesn't reproduce some images reliably. DTG is the most comfortable and can reproduce anything, but fades with time and is problematical on dark colors. (Same can be said of airbrushing, really) Special effects printing like the kind I've been experimenting with doesn't crack or fade but can peel with age and cannot capture small details very well. And almost every t-shirt you buy is 100% cotton, which is comfy but inevitably shrinks.

I've become ambivalent about the process any more. T-shirts just don't last. My goal is simply to make them look as good as I can while they do. Over the years, I've experimented with many online vendors and do business with several of them. I try to play to their various strengths. My own website's t-shirt shack has changed vendors four times over the years, in my never-ending search for the best quality product.

I imagine they will eventually develop a printing method that looks great, reproduces everything, is cheap and lasts forever. And then the EPA will ban it.

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What is red, furry and on your six?

--Rivet Counter Alert! --

The first P-40 shirt depicts a P-40E, which is a Kittyhawk. I don't think the Warhawk name came along until the P-40N.

The Flying Tigers P-40 should have Chinese insignia, or plain US Star-and-Circle. By the time what had been the AVG was absorbed into the USAAF the "meatball" had been dropped.

I'll crawl back under my rock now

SN

My understanding is that the Warhawk was the official US name for all models of the P-40? So sayeth Wikipedia, anyway.

I'll check the roundel, though. That's a good point.

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What is red, furry and on your six?

Curtiss was notorious for their lack of imagination when it came to naming aircraft. Internally at least, all fighters were 'Hawk' - Hawk II, Hawk III, Hawk-75 etc, until the the P-40 got 'Warhawk", and the RAF started with Kittyhawk, Tomahawk and such.

All of their ground attack airplanes were "Shrike"s too

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Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.

oops, nevermind.