A few years ago I decided to apply
my favorite hobby to a textile medium. WWII aircraft has always been my
forte in modeling and I wanted to do something a little out of the
ordinary. There are only a handful of warbirds that would be
recognizable to the general public. Most people would identify with a
Mustang, Corsair or Flying Tiger P-40 due to their media exposure. Don’t
get me wrong, any of these would make for some really cool looking
shirts. The Wildcat is a very well known bird among enthusiasts and its
place in history is set in stone. However, that being said it’s not a
likely candidate to be the main subject of a piece of apparel. This is
what helped me cement my choice of Leroy Grumman’s pugnacious little
fighter for this project.
First up is to decide on
the artwork. Either to capture a moment like in a Keith Ferris or Roger
Taylor painting or something of a more technical image as in Koike
Shigeo’s superlative Hasegawa box art?
Not being worthy to lick clean the paint brushes
of any of the fore mentioned artists I opted for the latter and let the
Wildcat stand on its own. After coming up with the fonts and a ¾ front
angle view that seemed to catch a lot of the nuance of the F4F it was
time to put the outlined image to fabric via silk screen as seen on this
natural white t-shirt. This is a fairly large screen print at about 14.5
inches wide by 10 inches deep. To me the bigger the image the better.
PAINTING
When screening and
airbrus hing on textiles it’s highly recommended to use a light colored,
50/50 poly-cotton blend garment. The polyester in the fabric gives the
acrylic base in the paint something to bite into when it’s set with a
high heat and pressure, or in other words melting the plastic in the
paint to the plastic in the material. Airbrushing inside a black outline
is somewhat like a coloring book. The idea is to stay inside or on the
black lines. Testors Model Master acrylic navy gull gray [w/ a few drops
of brown added] and U.S. Navy blue gray are the camouflage colors
sprayed over the majority of the Wildcat straight out of the bottle. I
opted to hand paint the insignia and gun muzzle tape with Testors Aztec
true blue and Permaset opaque white silk screen ink. This opaque ink
lays down stark white no matter how dark the fabric it’s applied to. The
pilot and cockpit hues are also mixes of Testors colors. Pearlized
silver from Createx was used for the prop boss and panel chipping as was
Createx yellow for the prop tips. Some of the panel lines were
reconstituted with some black paint and a fine tip paint brush. To cut
down on the starkness of the colors Aztec translucent white was sprayed
inside the panels to tone them down. This in turn also gives a panel
shading effect. The last thing to paint is the clouds with a simple
stencil cut from scrap cardboard. After a top coat of acry lic polymer
is sprayed at high pressure it is left to hang until dry. A heat press
is ideal for setting the paint and ink but an iron at 350 degrees with
an interface will suffice.
CONCLUSIONS
Although this may not have turned
out to be a technical masterpiece it sure was a lot of fun to do.
Sometime after the screen was made for this shirt in late 2005 The
History Channel began to air programs like Dogfights and Battle 360 on
which the Wildcat once again took center stage. With the popularity of
these shows a lot more people can now identify with the little fighter
that held the line in the Pacific during the dark, uncertain, early
months of the Pacific war. This lends the shirt to inspire a lot of
attention and conversation when worn. After 35 years or more I can still
go back and look at some of that old Revell artwork and evoke a lot of
fo nd memories that inspired a part of my youth. Like the artists who
created these mesmerizing box top masterpieces this is a medium that is
limited only by ones imagination. The possibilities are almost endless.
Scott Weir
October 2008
October 2008