Good morning fellas!
I wanted to swing by and talk shop a little but this morning because a lot has coalesced in my mind which I wanted to share, and, And, AND!!! I have a new addition to the rotation on the old workbench which I wanted to show off!
What is it...?
A jet?
A Huey?
A Stuka?
Yet another Emil?
An aircraft carrier?
NOPE!
It’s a.... Skate deck? A skate deck? A SKATE DECK!!!???
Yes! It arrived this morning! The good folks at Beer City Skateboards & Records shipped it out to me via Federal Express. I ordered it Wednesday. You cannot beat their service. I wish they sold paints and model kits.
And this isn’t off the mark. Speaking technically- I’m building this setup. I’ll be picking out and installing the trucks of my choosing, shock pads, bearings, and wheels, and I’ll be putting the grip tape on there myself as well (and that’s where this thing is going to get really interesting, so more on the grip tape later).
I always had a skateboard when I was a kid. It was standard-issue. Part of the equipment along with a pocket knife and a Zippo lighter and if you were into bicycles too- either a Mongoose, Haro, GT, or a Dyno. BMX or Freestyle, didn’t matter. Anyway, I’m always driving down to Little Veron’s, the corner market down the road from my house, and that’s silly. Why not skate there? Why not skate on my lunch breaks if I’m not wrapped up with a model (which believe it or not is the case sometimes)? Skating is fun. Now, I was never good at doing tricks, and I would imagine that at 41 years old, after not having ridden a skateboard in 25 years, I’d be even less good at doing tricks. But this ain’t that kind of deck, Nosir. This sweet baby is a cruiser. Big. Ugly. COMFY. Add shock pads under the trucks and good quality wheels on there and you can cruise around all day long... skating like that brings JOY, just like a well-executed camouflage paint job.
So let’s put a pin in that and talk a little bit about camouflage, and what informs these ridiculous visions I have in my mind for these projects. Most of the time me and my mind operate like a fella riding a horse which is galloping down the road at breakneck speed. We blow by you and you holler at me “Hey Kenny X, where ya going?” And I holler back “I don’t know, man, ask the horse!”
... but occasionally I get the blessing of a glimpse into how my mind works and where my ideas actually come from- the underpinnings I mean.
I have always been struck by how much the splinter scheme on wings of Luftwaffe birds reminded me of vipers like copperheads and water moccasins. I mentioned that to Bruce yesterday actually while we were chatting. Just in passing. But it stuck. See here:
He’s got it all! Earth tones. Geometric patterns. And modulation!
And look at the lighter shades for a moment...
And now have another look at my splinter camo with the overspray:
It hit me like a ton of bricks that I was subconsciously trying to emulate a copperhead with this paint job the whole time! Without knowing it. And when I looked at it, after wrapping it up with a few small touch-ups and additions, I was overwhelmingly pleased with the effect. Contrast that to the absolute hatred I felt toward my first two failed attempts. Oh man! So apparently there’s something buried deep in my mind that makes me like Luftwaffe subjects because it thinks it’s real important to paint schemes which are reminiscent of copperheads. Which begs the question- “I wonder why the Hell that is!? What’s so important about copperheads?”
Also, when trying to map-out how I wanted this camo to look, I Googled “field-applied Luftwaffe camo” and ended up falling down an interesting rabbit hole. Check out these helmets:
By the time I’d found those I wasn’t even thinking about airplanes anymore. But something in my head was looking for any clue as to what the Luftwaffe did with their camouflage modifications... and it makes sense. A huge point of frustration for me with this build was that I couldn’t find any photos at all of Pips’ Emil which showed the upper-wings, and honestly- the scheme given in the instruction booklet just doesn’t work for me. On one hand it doesn’t look like a copperhead at all. On the other, it doesn’t look Luftwaffe to me either. I have no idea why. It just doesn’t feel right, I don’t think the ground crews applied RLM 02 on swirls with a mop and bucket. But I freely admit I could be totally wrong. Always remember- I don’t preach. I am not the end all be all of Luftwaffe knowledge. None of these ideas are “fixed”, they’re always evolving as I learn and this is purely a Polaroid photo of where my mind is at the moment.
Anyway, I can see the influence of those helmets finding its way into my work on this, informing it... and I think that’s really interesting.
The brain is an amazing thing. All these connections from one thing to the next. And if for example I need help with a challenging camo scheme and I can’t find info which relates directly to my subject, the good old brain goes flipping through the files and finds something, ANYTHING which maybe can relate. This time it was copperheads. And those helmets informing the vision AND giving me fodder for other ideas for things.
Now, back to my skateboard...
Since I’m building this thing myself to my specifications, why not have some fun with the grip tape? Instead of just unrolling basic black onto that beautiful deck, why no get a few rolls, in earth tones, slice it to pieces, and did a splinter scheme like this:
That might look real sharp on that deck! So I’m considering that, now. Might have to go to the skate shop this weekend and see what they have in terms of colored grip tape. I think this is a mighty cool idea!
Anyway, thank you as always for your candor and support and for being good friends of mine and for letting me go on and on about my ideas and why I have them and where they come from. I like this community a lot. I’m lucky to be a part of it.
Y’all have a great weekend out there!
