Art & Inspiration How to paint WWII Nose Art: The Sequel

If you've been here awhile, you know I love WWII and nose art, and that olemulskinner, BTB_Mikey, my Dad and myself painted nose art that I designed on the Commeorative Air Force B-24 in 2007 and chronicled the experience with my How to Paint WWII Nose Art thread.

This past weekend, I was at the Grissom Air Museum in Indiana painting some nose art on their C-47. They are changing the paint on their C-47 from D-day to CBI, in the markings of Lt. Jim Haus' aircraft. He is still living, and will be present at the dedication ceremony at the museum on May 13/14. So I was asked by Chris Henry who is a volunteer at the museum, if I would draw up and paint the nose art that was on his aircraft. I also designed some Tshirts for the museum as well. Of course I said yes!

Fans of my Django Studios Facebook page, got a front row seat to the progress each day.

It was a great experience and not without challenges! Thanks to Chris and Rob for everything they did to help make this happen and I'm honored to have been a part of it.

After a slow start with the scaffolding and then the template issue, things were not looking good the first few hours upon arrival. The dimensions they gave me were off by about 12" so the girl was going to be HUGE! I was a little freaked out that I was going to have to draw it freehand. Since I was lucky enough to speak to Hal Olsen last year (WWII Navy nose art painter on Tinian, 1945 and definitely an artistic hero of mine), I was familiar with the grid system that he used. My only concern was that I needed it to start and end in two particular spots, so just started sketching and used 4 tickmarks in the vertical to gauge where everything needed to be. It was getting late in the day, and I needed to make some kind of progress so I jumped in with both feet so to speak. Looking at the finished product, the fact that I drew it all by hand makes me the most proud. By sunset of Day 1, I was pretty happy with how far I got. Chris was great and ready to jump if I needed the slightest thing. He was the perfect host.



The worthless template.











End of Day 1:

 

At one point the first night, as the sun was setting people were parking in the parking lot and just watching. It was really something.

Day 2 was rough! It was supposed to be the nicer of the 2 days. Ha! Full clouds and nasty wind. The paint requires 50° and above, so in the morning, Chris took us around the B-17 and inside the C-47.







My Dad and Uncle Bob drove up. My Uncle was a Crew Chief in the Kyushu Gypsies in Korea. He made 21 trips above the 38th parallel. He had lots of stories to share with us. My Dad and Uncle Bob are the reason I'm am into WWII aircraft, so I'm glad they were able to spend the day. I don't think my uncle knew what he was in for though over the course of the day. It was a pretty long day for him.

My uncle at his station in the C-47.



The wind: It was awful! Cold too. We were trying to figure out how to create some kind of windbreak up on the scaffolding. Not an easy prospect. Once we got the blankets up and secured to the ladder and C-47, my Dad stood there, almost all day to make sure the windbreak stayed together, as you can only expect so much with blankets and duct tape in 20-30mph winds. I told him he didn't have to do that, but he ***ured me that he did. So thanks Dad!


















After 5 coats of yellow on the lettering on the B-24, I learned my lesson! So I took oldbobsign's advice and did a white basecoat.



Dad wanted to do some of the black painting while I attended to some of the detail work, so that helped too. At one point when I was doing the lettering, the paint was blowing off of my paint brush. Sometimes, the plane would be moving, the scaffolding would be moving, and I would be moving, all 3 in different directions! But hey, at least no one was shooting at me, right?



I got back on the black. By early evening, the wind was dying down, and while close, there was still only a couple hours to go before total darkness out there.

 

By 8:00, I was all done, and we could pull the scaffolding and have a look.



With my Dad and Uncle.



With Chris.




On Sunday Rob and Chris did more stripping, sanding, prepping, and painting on the nose and sent me this pic.



So all in all, I was pretty stoked and the folks at the museum are super happy. On May 13/14, they are having a dedication and Jim Haus and his family are flying out to see the C-47. There will be a P-51 Mustang flyover, and I hear they are going to try to take Mr Haus up in a T-6. I'm looking forward to meeting Mr Haus, and I hope he likes it!

Also, looks like I will be a guest on Warbird Radio to talk about the project, Thursday May 5 at 8pm central time.

 

Wow! Awesome job!

 

Very sweet.....I love this stuff and the fact that you showed us the progression.

 

Nice work once again Chad, you do us proud.

 

That's awesome! Now all you have to do is the other side. Lol.

 

you are the man dude. *****in way to make a little mark on aviation history

 

Fantastic job!! "Lt. Haus" will be very impressed.

 

wow thats sweet!! my grandfather use to fly those in wwII. he said they called them gooney birds. nice job!

 

My G-pa has a ton of hours in that plane as well! Very cool man, great job!

 

"I love them redheads!"...

Great Work, Chad!

 

Once again, you've done the USAF...er...Army Air Corps proud!

Come to Florida and paint up our gunships!

 

I dig it man.

 

Good Job, well done!

 

Awesome Chad!

 

Really cool and interesting!

 

Great job and you shared it with your Dad and Uncle , cherish every moment you have with them! Nose art is just that an art and looks like you had great teachers.
I took my Dad to the Reno Air Races in 1990 and it is a memory I will have with me the rest of my life as he died 6 years ago, it always puts a smile on my face.Rob

 

Hey Chad "Great work"!

I know of a couple more if you're interested...

 

wow ! That's great !

 

Thanks!

I've got 2 more lined up now. A P-51, and a B-17, but the B-17 probably won't be for 3-4 years.

Here's the Tshirt art, printed up by HAMBer oddrodgarage.

 

Came out REALLY nice. Whose B-17 do you have lined-up to do? DD

 

Awesome Chad! Great job....

 

Awesome work, Chad! What a cool gig to have! And what an honor!

 

Great job! That must be an honor to paint something historic like that.

 

Thanks! It's Miss Liberty Belle at the Grissom Air Museum also. I posted a pic of it at the beginning of the thread. The current nose art on it is close to what it is supposed to be, but not quite period correct. This was the first project that got me involved with the museum in the first place. Oddly enough, it will be years before I get to do it!

Miss Liberty Belle art

Miss Liberty Belle T-shirts that I designed for them.

 

man how i love those gooney birds! great work.

 

that is going to be quite an honor that you're going to undertake when painting the Miss Liberty Belle dude... the Belle got really shot up on its last mission over Germany, and ended up crashing just outside of a small village in England... the pilots where heroes for keeping that crippled bird aloft long enough to miss that village, and even tho all of the crew survived the bomb run, only two members survived the crash...

 

Great stuff! Dad was stationed at at Great Ashfield in England with the 385th a B-17 base were most of the nose art was painted by Anne Hayward a local British girl. Just this past Sunday I picked up a book on captured and crashed US and British planes that the Germans repaired and flew or cut up for s****. Really sad to see a B-17 my Dad may have worked on being cut up in Germany.