Phandango patch ideas

[Krusty]

I had a thought, and I had a rare bit of free time this weekend, so I put something together for Philippine Phandango's patch.



And here it is small to get an idea of what the "resolution" might be on a real patch. Note the text is preliminary, I'd like to have it more symmetrical:




The description of the design:

Dances ("Phandangos" if you will) are a back and forth, give and take, and given the fact that this focuses on Asian forces fighting Western forces, I thought it would be good to incorporate the yin/yang into it.

That decided, I wanted to incorporate a give and take that subtly included both national emblems... I started with pure red underneath the US star, but thought it might not look quite right, so I changed that to a rising sun (a bit more distinguishable), and this also set me apart from the Rangoon patch which I did not want to be acused of copying.

The swirling pattern in the center plays host to the swirling ships and their wake as the bombs fall around them. Not only inspired by historic footage and photos, it also allowed me to include the "dots" in the yin/yang symbol as bomb splashes.

I wasn't sure if using red around the text would be too much, or if folks would understand that the red would be a "meatball" or what. I would like the text off-angle like that (rather than centered top/bottom) to further emphasize the dynamic and ever-changing balances in war and in dance.

Before you reply with comments, let me point out that the colors in photoshop are not necessarily how it will look in patch form. Sometimes the colors look gaudy or harsh to the LCD-viewing eye but in real world lighting conditions the embroidery looks much better and more appealing. That said these colors can be tweaked but I wanted the STAR to be more silver/grey to set it apart (bright and contrast wise) from the rising sun.

[maddafinga]

Actually, I love it man. 

[skribetm]

i like it too, but pls. take off the ships.
maybe use a carrier + destroyer instead.

great job!

[BoilerDown]

I like the ships.  And I think that's a great patch idea.  I don't know what detail a patch can go into though... can you make em look like the AH ships (carrier and a cruiser maybe) or is that too high res for a patch?

[K-KEN]

I am thinking a few red blood drippings off the right side of the stats point. Might be appropriate!  

Love the clean design

[BMathis]

  That's a nice Patch!  I had the same thought and was working on one as well...  This is the first time I've tried to create a patch.  I think I like scrennies better; they're way easier! 

[SIK1]

Krusty I like it. I see that my participation in frame one is represented by the two flaming craters.  
I like the ships, but maybe they should be pointed at each other instead of heading in the same direction. That part just seems a little off. I can't really put my finger on it though, and that was the first thing the jumped out at me. Also maybe a little more of the Japanese flag. If you made the star white you could have some of the red from the Japanese flag blend across it. The patch seems very pro US with the star on a large blue field, and only a small portion of the Japanese flag.  

BMathis I like your design too. Yours is more balanced US v Japan. I think I would prefer all the writing around the outer edge with PP centered across the top. Maybe the ship vertical on a red background from both the US and Japanese flag. I think your design needs more of the blue of the US flag, also a 48 star flag might give it more of that nostalgic feel to it.  

Just my two cents which now a days won't even buy a piece of gum.

Great work both of you.  

[Krusty]

Boiler/skribe: It's hard to tell what's a ship. I chose a very iconic shape that most folks might recognize. If I put a carrier in there it's a long narrow rectangle. People won't get there's a ship there with a bow and stern. Also there won't be much details at this level of stitch resolution, so I didn't want a picture of a carrier or a picture of a cruiser.

kken: I shied away from a "meatball" underneath the US star because I didn't want folks to see it as a "sea of blood" -- it can be seen as too much of a one-sided representation (that the US is the ocean and they're being made to bleed, or that they're spilling the enemy's blood into the ocean) rather than showing both symbols. That's why I moved more towards the rising sun.

bmathis: I like the general design, but try shrinking it down to 250x250 (just as a sample test, keep your original large files to work with) then look at that. I bet you won't be able to see the text very well. I might suggest making the letters larger down the middle and the "beige band" wider, and maybe set the text around the edge on a solid border (like the BOB patches, etc). Only real problem is the plane shapes don't show up so well on patches, especially if you make more details like pitot tubes etc.

Sik1: Those craters actually better represent my 2 end results in the practice and the first frame! I plowed in 2 frames in a row while dive bombing. Splash! Splash! (those are me) heh heh! But you really can't blend colors in patches that are made from stitches. You need solid demarcations, sort of. I made the ships going the same way because they are in the same convoy. Much like pictures of the era show, they're weaving independently.

I also tried a couple variations with how much is "removed" in the center of the star, but I found too much and it lost the yin/yang look, and too little and the japanese flag was nondescript. I kind of like the amounts for the background, so far. I would like to tweak the ships a bit. Perhaps make them silver, like the star's color? Keep in mind we're limited to only so many unique colors. This currently uses 5 I think.

[Babalonian]

Really like the patch Krusty, looks good, but I agree with others that the ships kinda loow "meh" upon further inspection.

Try an older model american carrier IMHO, their decks didn't fully cover the bow and stern of the ship.  The only problem I have with the boat (and it seems to go against the symetry of the patch that one of the boats is following the other boat, rather than them being mirrored) you used is that it looks too much like a small dingy or rowboat.  Same thing with the torch eyes, both are pointing up when I think mirrored symetry might work better (ie: rotate the top torch 90 degrees CCW and the bottom one 90 CW). 

I think the 5-star in the background oriented pointing up, the way it is, is a perfect up-anchor/reference for the rest of the patch and artwork.  Last little thing I just noticed, seems to me most of the outermost text on the border isn't centered in the border (seems to be riding a little high/outwards).  Word wrap can be a finiky bi!@# in earlier versions of PS, hopefuly you can adjust it quickly without trouble and dont have to manualy insert and orient each letter.


Manthis, I like yours too but it doesn't seem 100% complete yet (don't get me wrong, you've definetley done most of the work and the hard part at that), and you also did a great mash of a lot of red n white.  I like the planes and ship, good scale and clarity on the edges.  It might just be me and too much coffee today, but does the star-density on the american flag look too dense ot anyone else, maybe it's the 90-degree rotation...?    I also think a border would be good and is missing (just a single black or red or w/e line, doesn't have be be a banner w/ type, just a clean edge on the limits).  Also save a copy of the file and then scale/zoom it down to ~actual patch size, I think all the type/font (and that thin philippine phandango) will look a pinch too small/puny, so you might want to bump it up a bit (~120% imo), taking actual scale into consideration.

[BMathis]

Thanks for the Tips.  Been busy, but will definitely make changes.  I've taken out the CV and put a silhouette of a Fletcher Class Destroyer in its' place.

[Krusty]

Bmathis, I notice you have a transparent GIF that makes the middle transparent. I assume it was meant to be white like the background?

Here's the same thing sized down in non-transparent form:

EDIT: Some existing patches for comparison, as well

[Fencer51]

BMathis,

Btw, remember 48 stars in the flag, and the blue field should be to the left.  You could swap the sides for the relative same look.  I think the planes will look cool, the text could be bigger, you could wrap it around the outside behind the smaller fighters.

[cactuskooler]

I like yours Krusty. I think it should say "August 2010" though, rather than "8/2010", if you can find room.

[BMathis]

I can post the PSD file and we can make it a group effort! 

[Krusty]

Cactus, yes I need to retweak the words. It's a real pain. Photoshop 5 has NO word art or anything. I had to import that into GIMP and then wrap the words, save it, and open up again in PS to keep editing.

BMathis, definitely a possibility! A couple of prior patches have been team efforts, as well.

EDIT: I just checked, one other was a dual effort, but no reason not to do it again!