I knew a guy once named Mike Csoka. When I knew him, he was shriveled up old sign painter working out of a shack in Norman, Oklahoma. At the time, I worked at a custom bike shop (my Ford F970 Killer will be released soon... Inside joke, sorry...) and... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
They are awesome, its too bad that these things are dying out in todays military. I still have my Parachute School patch, 'Knowledge dispels fear' Doc. PS, Did you get them?
Those are so dang cool Ryan. I love that kind of stuff. I like seeing guys build cars with the WW2 warbird slant. the two seem to go together well. Mark
A stack mo' of that kinda artwork here: http://www.aeroleatherclothing.com/webapp/aeroleather/servlet/AeroViewPage?category=INSIGNIA%20&page=displaysubcats&catid=37 Some cool 'Duds' to suit Trad styled Rodders can be had on this site too. This company, Aero Leathers, make/supply some of the finest reproduction 'period' leathers available. I personally wear and hard, a swell A2 jacket sans anykinda insignia. Insignias are cool, but do consider and respect the 'meaning' and 'purpose' of why these things were worn and created. They're (insignia art work) always a great inspiration though.
Koops I wish you had not put that link to aeroleatherclothing.com. Now I am going to have to try and explain where all my money goes! It's difficult enough hiding the amount my truck owes me.
Had them on both cowl panels... only a couple guys knew what unit and the significance they represented...! I took them off when everybody else started doing aircraft influenced cars that bordered on "Art Car" and I didn't want to disgrace a real historical significance of that particular military unit!
i wouldnt say long and gone, every now and then during certain deployments they let us decorate the aircraft with some nose art. but you are right the times are passing and theyre getting more strict about it.
I have always loved nose art. There is something about it that really makes me to stop and study it, wondering what was going through the artist mind at the time. My favorite is still the piece I use as my avatar Thanks for posting these!
I agree -- you shouldn't use it unless you are actually honoring that unit and those who served in it, and you know about the major actions they were in, their weapons, their casualties, etc. Most of us have a relative who served. If it's just decoration, find something else. Hotrodding is about creativity -- get creating!
My favourite kinda art - EVER. Have the Bumblebees throwin a bomb on my B3. Thanx for puttin this up Ryan. Made my day !! Rat
Always enjoyed nose art, and having been in the service some time ago (less PC nonsense) one of the units I was with had painted a mascot on their equipment. At the time Ford was using a Cobra snake rearing up as logo on Cobrajet equipped cars. The unit had armored Am-tracs so the side was a huge bill-board. One of the guys painted a similar Cobra equipped with tracks on each of our tractors. Most amtracs were just for transport but ours had turrets with 105mm howitzers w/automatic breeches so we felt like advertising how "bad" we were. Some of the nose/patch art is kind of amateurish but it was a sign of good morale if a unit displayed pride. On the other hand some of it was very good and I've understood that Disney studio did renderings for some units during WWII. Somewhere I have a photo of one of our tractors with the art on it, have to scrounge around and see if it turns up.
This stuff is beyond words. I liked all of them . Thanks for the research and sharing it with us J.Lockwood
Those are way cool....I've always prefered the "rougher" art stuff over the really "nice and perfect" stuff.....if that makes sense. One of the reasons I hand painted my own on the side of my lil' truck.... Say, you worked at a custom bike shop???? What kinda bikes? If ya don't mind....
The well done ones are beautiful, but the crude ones make me think of someone overseas that had a scrap of canvas and some basic scrounged up "art supplies". I prefer the crude ones. The flying satan with wings may be finding a home on my O/T '67 MGB GT racer i'm wanting to build...
Man I love nose art and love those patches. Been toying with the idea of nose art for the tow rig I'm building. These gave me inspiration. thanks for the bump!
talk about awesome images. i think i'm gonna have to pull out the book on nose art that i got from wingnutz
Some of those units still exist. The "Hat in the Ring" squadron has heraldry that goes back to WWI, and is still an active fighter squadron in the World's Finest Air Force. Very cool stuff.
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