Looking for Flying Tigers insignia for an interesting project

[whaler]

Hello all, first off, let me come right out and say that I'm not a sim guy, my father in law is and suggested that I look here for what I need.

I race motorcycles (supermoto specifically) and am doing a set of custom graphics for my bike (well, my brother the artist is). I had used the P-40 style shark mouth design on my last set....


Well, I'm rehashing the idea for my current bike, but would like it to be more authentic to the Flying Tigers AVG this time around. I'd like to replace the star insignia with the leaping tiger, seen below...


The trouble is, I've been searching for days all over the internet for a vector one, that my brother could use in Freehand MX, but have not been able to find one, ai, eps or otherwise. I'm fairly sure google is going to take out a restraining order against me if I don't stop! My brother did say that he could replicate it, but it would take him a while. Being that he's overburdened at his paying job, I'd hate for him to have to go through all that painstaking work if somebody out there already has!

Again, I apologize, I don't normally go forum crashing. I figure I've helped enough noobs out on other forums that I might have some "pay it forward" kharma coming to me!

Thank you in advance to anyone that can help me out!!

[gamary]

Best advice I can give is that you go to the Download area here and get the file "US various insignias & markings" which contains one of those AVG Tigers in .psd format. From there, your brother might hopefully be able to vectorize it? It's a clean drawing so it should be do-able.

[whaler]

I stumbled on something pretty close....



and it comes in .eps format!! I was able to delete all the elements except for the tiger. Not the exact image I wanted, but close enough!

For any one who is interested, Air Force Link has a lot of images available for free download, most of them in .eps format!
Air Force Link - Art
Mostly squadron insignias and such, but a lot of neat stuff. Hope it helps somebody! Thanks!

[e-b-o-]

If I remember correctly you're able to convert pixel based images to a vector based graphic directly in Freehand. But don't ask me for details, I haven't touched Freehand for about 5 years.

[Macwan]

Hello Whaler,

I had redrawn this tiger years ago. Here is a preview of its EPS converted file :


If it does fit with what you're looking for, I will send the EPS file to you...
Also I did some sharkmouths based on AVG photographs, plus markings (both american an chinese ones of this era).

EDIT : an other render... funny stuff !


Best Regards,

Macwan.

[whaler]

Thanks Macwan, but I just approved the final proof of the graphics using the Tiger I found on airforcelink.

I appreciate your hard work though!

The bike I'm making these for is a KTM, and the colors are Orange and black, so here's what I went with. Not completely historically accurate, but I'm guessing the other guys won't know!

Thanks again to everybody for helping an outsider!!

[redxblack]

I googled for the flying tigers and motorcycles and was directed to this thread. This is a pretty neat forum. Macwan - do you still have your eps of that beautiful rendering? Would you be willing to share it with a total noob? I'll post pics once I use it. Thanks in advance regardless of what you decide.

[Bakshi]

Check this site out. The AVG patch designs came from original artwork.
Enjoy. Flight Suits: Historical WWII Patches & Nametags

Bakshi