Painted Flight Jackets - Planes, Names, and Dames

[442RCT]

Art jackets by jerome

Rupert, if you haven't visited Jerome's art jacket gallery, IMHO, there's none better for flight jacket art. The detailing for the aircraft is totally amazing.

Here's a link to his picture galleries.

Jerome's Art

 

[Rupert]

Thanks for the link - when I grow up I want to be able to paint like that.

Rupert
www.paintedleatherjackets.com

 

[442RCT]

Designing projects

I recently bought a used 4 or 5 year old copy of Photoshop Elements. I've been teaching myself how to use it so I could design art jackets which I used to do by printing, cutting and pasting the layout on the back of a jacket.

For my design projects, I'll pick one of my favorite aeroplanes, then add picture elements to tell a story, that is if there is a story to tell, or sometimes, I'll just like a pin-up girl and go with that.

My first example is a tribute jacket for Korean War Ace, Boots Blesse, who I had the honor of meeting at a Friends Of American Fighter Aces luncheon and autograph my A-2. His ride was the swept wing F-86 Sabre when he flew into MIG Alley.

Major general Frederick C. Blesse was one of the greatest aces of the Korean War era. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1945, flew two combat tours during the Korean War, completing 67 missions in F-51s, 35 missions in F-80s and 121 missions in F-86s. During his second tour in F-86s, he was officially credited with shooting down nine MIG-15s and one La-9. At the time of his return to the U.S. in October 1952, he was America's leading jet ace.

I started with Boots Blesse's Sabre at the top. The logo, " MIG KILLER", is in oriental script curved over the jet.

A pin-up girl from the same era is underneath the F-86 with the title of a book on aerial tactics authored by Blesse, " No Guts, No Glory". Arrayed on either side of the pin-up are red stars for the kill marks representing the 10 planes downed by Blesse.

 

[442RCT]

New blog a-2 painted flight jackets

Currently I have 2 jacket painting commissions in progress and a third one in the design stage. The first one is based on images from Romain Hugault's blog. :eusa_clap He's a French illustrator who does art work for aviation themed graphic novels. I saw his stuff and immediately designed a jacket back and commissioned a local artist to paint it. The second jacket is a copy of Jerome Urbaniak's, 'Dragon Lady'. It should be done within a month or two. When the Hugault A-2 is done, I'm having the artist do a Marilyn Monroe inspired Korean War design. Believe it or not, finding an iconic Marilyn photo for the design has been difficult. I would have loved to have found a pic of her in her sheath dress from "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend".

I've started a Blog titled; A-2 PAINTED FLIGHT JACKETS, this blogging thing is new to me so it's a work in progress.
A-2 JACKET ART

ROMAIN HUGAULT'S BLOG
http://romain-hugault.blogspot.com/

 

[Rupert]

Ageing work on leather

A customer of mine wants me to do something on a flight jacket and then age it.

I usually use acrylics so that the paint stays flexible and avoids this very problem, and I don't really want to switch to enamels, which I suspect would crack and age more easily.

I'm wondering if some sort of crackle glaze might do the trick.

Does anyone have any ideas about how I could go about this?

Cheers

Rupert

 

[442RCT]

Antiquing paint job

I was waiting for an artist to jump in with his response before giving mine.
I commissioned an A-2 with a pre-aged look to copy the original jacket from WW2. The artist did a brilliant job getting that look. Like you, he normally works with acrylics on leather. He tried all sorts of post paint finishes on the acrylic paint and he told me that just made the paint flake off in sheets. Nothing he got from the art store helped antique the acrylic paint job without flaking the paint off. He finally ended up painting with thinned enamel and the paint job turned out fantastic.

The other 'antiqued' paint job I have looks like it was painted with enamel and it's cracking and crazing very nicely, it's got great patina.

Here are examples of work from an artist, who paints for a Japanese jacket company, Mr. Akeno Tatsuya in Kyoto, examples of his work can found at: http://www.c-king.jp/j-art/j_art_home.html . He's sandpapered some of his patches after wards to age the paint.

 

[Rupert]

Thanks for replying 442.

I suspected that enamels woudl be the answer. I haven't used them since I wrestled with them painting model aeroplanes many many years ago, and I'm not really wild about the idea of going back to them. still, maybe that's the way to go.

I've unintentionally discovered a way of ageing the edges as the masking tape I'm using is lifting the white base coat, which is a new experience for me. Oh joy.

Rupert

 

[442RCT]

Romain Hugault Inspired Jacket Art

I picked up my Romain Hugault inspired A-2 jacket today and it’s a doozy. The artist did a fantastic job on it. This project started when someone posted a link to Romain Hugault’s blog on the VLJ Forum.
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fromain-hugault.blogspot.com%2F
I was blown away by his illustrations and immediately took: a plane (a P-51), a dame (the cover girl for his book, “Pin Up Wings2”), and for a name, I used my motto, “Go For Broke” .

[/IMG]

I took these elements and did a cut and paste mock-up (I didn’t have Photoshop, nor knew how to use it). I contacted a local artist who normally did tattoos, but wanted to paint a leather jacket. I even had to lend him my paints since he didn’t have any. So this was a new medium for him to learn.
I substituted Miss Lace for the nude nose art on the P-51 to be somewhat politically correct.

He e-mailed photos of his progress and made a series of You Tube videos of him doing the painting.

The completed jacket ! Yippee Ki Yay !!!

 

[raya]

I'm new to this forum (though I have looked around in the past) I came across these vintage flight jacket art that I wanted to share. I did do a search to see if this link had been posted before, if so my apology. I was also not sure where to post it, but this seems a good place as any.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18532986@N07/sets/72157626140462192/with/5478527450/

ray

 

[442RCT]

I'm new to this forum (though I have looked around in the past) I came across these vintage flight jacket art that I wanted to share. I did do a search to see if this link had been posted before, if so my apology. I was also not sure where to post it, but this seems a good place as any.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18532986@N07/sets/72157626140462192/with/5478527450/

ray

Thanks ! GREAT site :eusa_clap...I've been to that link and have been doing some research on many of the jackets pictured and the stories behind them and posting about them on a blog about my favorite subject...painted flight jackets. :eusa_doh:
http://a2jacketart.tumblr.com/

 

[Stearmen]

My A2

Here is the one and only jacket I painted back in the early 90s. Long gone now!

 

[442RCT]

You did a neat period looking paint job.

I'm glad you were able to re-post pics of the jacket you painted. hopefully the photosite you're using won't delete it again.

 

[Stearmen]

You did a neat period looking paint job.

I'm glad you were able to re-post pics of the jacket you painted. hopefully the photosite you're using won't delete it again.

Thanks! I put the photos back on Photobucket, but this time I marked them as private. Seems to have worked, we will see.

 

[442RCT]

Aloha cowboy design

About a month ago, I contacted Charles R. Taylor, who's an aviation artist. I asked if he'd take a jacket painting commission. To my delight he said that was an area he'd planned on entering. He told me he liked doing pin-ups and airplanes or whatever else I wanted on the back. I picked out one of my unpainted A-2s, a U.S. Authentic, and shipped it off before I even had a design in mind. A few days after he received the jacket, I finally sent him my photo-shopped jacket back. I decided to do a Vargas island girl and a B-25 and call it 'Aloha Cowboy'. One of the books that got me into painted jackets was, "Cowboys Of The Sky", which was admittedly a hardback sales brochure for Avirex, I still liked the history and the jacket photos in the book. When I was in Maui last year, I happened upon a western clothing store in Makawao, named "Aloha Cowboy". I've been meaning to design a jacket around that name because it had two things I like, Hawaii and cowboys.
My photo-shopped design:

The finished jacket from the artist-

http://www.cafepress.com/+charles_r_taylor_aviation_art_wall_calendar,332164924

If anyone wants to contact this artist for a paintjob, let me know.
He's a total gentleman and easy to work with.

 

[442RCT]

About a month ago, I dropped off one of my A-2s for a Marilyn Monroe paint job with a local artist who painted the Romain Hugault inspired jacket for me.
I incorporated the 5th AF patch and an F-86 Sabre in the design.
I was looking for a clear photo of Marilyn in a sheath dress, but after hours of surfing the net didn't find anything I wanted to use. I appropriated an illustration of Marilyn from a poster of her, James Dean and Elvis. I'm going to have the artist give her a bright smile...I didn't like the forlorn look she had in the poster.

I tried different designs and logos, but decided to K.I.S.S., Keep It Simple Stupid.

While researching her USO trip to Korea, I couldn't help but to admire her for the way she handled herself during the tour, no prima donna was she, according to most sources.

Chris Sarno, a Marine who saw one of her shows remarked-

"In spite of the cold and the flakes of snow falling from the sky, Sarno said that Marilyn Monroe stepped out onto the stage in a stunning cocktail dress with spaghetti straps. "The cheering was the loudest I had ever heard," he said. "I never thought that well of Marilyn Monroe. I never thought that she was a good actress, and I considered her sort of like a slutty person." But the longer Marilyn stayed on the stage, the higher Sarno’s regard for her grew. "It had to be only like 5 or 10 degrees above zero," he said. "She wasn’t a great singer, but who cared. She sounded good enough. She was a knockout. She could do no wrong. She changed my mind towards her. She was truly beautiful; really beautiful, gorgeous. She had a naiveté about herself despite being the most desirable woman in the world. She wasn’t performing like a tart. She was really trying to entertain us."

 

[442RCT]

The completed jacket was delivered by the artist.

If anyone wants a jacket painted, and he can paint anything you want, the artist is:

Christopher Aguirre
ChristopherM.Aguirre@yahoo.com
(530)355-4731

 

[Rupert]

That's another great jacket - you must have quite a collection.

In one of your earlier posts you mentioned that you did the layout for your jackets with something called Photoshop Elements. Could you tell me a bit more about this please? Is it different to 'regular' Photoshop, or especially good for this sort of layering? It strikes me as the sort of thing I might find quite useful when showing a design to someone before I paint a jacket for them.

Apologies for this being a bit OT but I can't work out how to send you a private message.

Cheers

Rupert
www.paintedleatherjackets.com

 

[442RCT]

Photo Editing programs

Designing jacket art is part of the process, as much as painting techniques.
The photo editing software I've been using is a 6 or 7 year old copy of Photoshop Elements I bought at a flea market. I've been told this is a 'lite' version of Photoshop for guys like me who aren't computer literate.

I've found an online 'free' version of what looks like Photoshop Elements. I haven't used it, but the screen looks pretty much like my Photoshop Elements program. You can give it a try. It's the pixlr.com website. Good Luck. :cheers1:

http://pixlr.com/

ps - Someone sent me his antiquing technique for acrylic painted leather. I've bought the stuff he used and will test it out. I'll let you know how it works or if it works at all.

 

[Jaguar66]

Looks good. I still think Jerome Urbaniaks painting is superb also, if he still does work. I saw the The Liberty Belle Jacket he did for one of the Liberty Belle pilots.
http://www.picturetrail.com/jrome

 

[Stearmen]

Marilyn Monroe & Her F-84

Found it, should be an F-84, not an F-86!