[Art/RFC] Rethinking older designs

[M Fnord]

So I was doodling in Illustrator, going over older work, seeing what could be improved, changed, etc. and a few hours later I stopped, idly wondering where the hell the evening went, and was stuck with several different design options.
Problem is, I don't know which choice is best. So on that note, I'm putting the following designs up for a vote:
fnord.sandwich.net/fenspa...hoices.jpg
(not direct linking it, because it's big enough to skew most people's browsers).
Out of these four, which (do you guys think) is the best design?---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[robkelk]

Ooooohhhh... That's a tough one.
Option 4 doesn't have the right "vibes" to me, if you know what I'm saying.
I could see the Soviet Air Force starting out with Option 2, just because it's cheap and easy, then switching to Option 3 once the money starts coming in. (Which makes Option 2 patches rare collectors' items...) Once the Fleet rises, they'd switch to Option 1.
(How's that for coming down squarely on the fence? But if you're insisting on just one, I'd go with Option 3.)

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Kokuten]

Option 1Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[M Fnord]

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Option 4 doesn't have the right "vibes" to me, if you know what I'm saying.

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*nod* I can see where you're coming from there. #4 was an attempt to get away from the shape standbys. I think it works *okay*, but...

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I could see the Soviet Air Force starting out with Option 2, just because it's cheap and easy, then switching to Option 3 once the money starts coming in.

---

Well, the funny part there is that #2 and #3 are identical except for color choices. Which admittedly does change things, and sometimes quite radically. Case in point:

Option 2 and 3, and the third is one I whipped up this morning by shifting the colors around a little. All the elements are 100% identical, only the colors are different. Pretty radical shifts, huh?
Okay, so... that's one vote for #1, and one vote for #3 so far.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Lord Aries Greymon]

"Because of the stuff I was raised on [Battletech, a host of hex-themed or centric things] , I'll have to Vote option 4."
"Apologies Lord Fnord, I know I'm being quite un-helpfull."

[robkelk]

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Well, the funny part there is that #2 and #3 are identical except for color choices.

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True, but the saturated colours in #3 are more expensive to put on a patch than the subdued colours of #2. Or, at least, they were the last time I looked, many years ago.

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[M Fnord]

---

"Apologies Lord Fnord, I know I'm being quite un-helpfull."

---

Oh, man, that's not unhelpful. Unhelpful is having the spare brainpower to think about stuff like this for hours on end, and then have second and third thoughts about the design work.
Unhelpful is putting a bunch of designs up for a vote and doing something like this.
...which you guys can feel free to comment on, too. There won't be another one.
I hope.
*whimper*
ETA:

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True, but the saturated colours in #3 are more expensive to put on a patch than the subdued colours of #2. Or, at least, they were the last time I looked, many years ago.

---

At this point, if you can get a Pantone match for the colors you can do it in full embroidery, and somewhat cheap, too. They still can't do gradients like that, more's the pity.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Kokuten]

gradients are easy, so long as you have the equipment (or time!) to produce gradient _thread_.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[CattyNebulart]

My vote goes to the yellow blue one because it's different.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Sirrocco]

I would say that option 2A and option 4 are the ones easiest to create for the "we need a patch. How do we get a patch" stage. Actually, if that stage is at all hectic, I could totally see taking option 4 by someone saying "here. We do it like this. It works." because they were stressed for time and ddn't want to bother with something complex. For that matter, I might see scrapping the complex background in favor of a split down the middle with yellow on one side and turquoise on the other. Those rays might be annoying to get right - I've never seen any patches with anything like them.
From what I've seen of artwork of this variety, it's difficult to get something like option 1, with its huge amounts of finicky detail, to come out in any way that actually looks good up close. You could conceivably do it by putting in noticeably more time and effort, but I don't see that it's particularly better to the degree that would make that worthwhile.
Option 2C looks awfully patriotic(US). That could be good (if they like the mindwarp of having russian lettering on a red-white-and-blue patch) or bad (if they don't like being mistaken for patriotic americans).
They could keep their first patch for good, for the legacy value, or they could decide to adjust it once they have time. If they choose to adjust, I can't see them going with 2A, 3A, or 4 - they're too bland for someone who's looking to upgrade. That leaves 3B and 3C (and only one of them, depending on Fan Panther/not Fan Panther) and 2B and 2C (depending on Looks American At A Distance or Not)
I would say, if you go with any of the options 3, it looks cooler if the thin part of the swoosh is behind the lettering, and the thick part is in front - suggesting that the ship departed the world, flew under and past the lettering, and then back up and away.
How's that for feedback?

[Foxboy]

The stately bulk of the Pinafore stood sentinel over the gathered ships as her Captain brought parting gifts to the crew.
"Salutations, my good man!" Joseph 'Josie' Corcoran said in his/her cheery affected British accent. Toni, the AI in his E.V.A. suit had chosen to take the form of a feminine Crimson Dynamo armor, leaving Josie little choice but to take on the physiognomy of a relatively well-known Russian supermodel of a few years back. "I should like to present you all with a few tokens of the esteem of myself and my irrepressible electro-autonomous distaff associates!" A 1 cubic foot box exchanged hands. "Also, the Dobbses and our Morale officer offers these brownies for your culinary appeasement."
The box was opened, revealing exquisite mission patches.
"Bubbles found your design process fascinating and chose to apply her own not inconsequential talents to your dilemma." Corcoran paused. "Besides, it was a new coloring book for her and part of her function. A win-win situation."
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[M Fnord]

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I would say that option 2A and option 4 are the ones easiest to create for the "we need a patch. How do we get a patch" stage.

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Actually, in terms of pure simplicity, 3b and 4 are the least complicated designs (both visually and in how much time it took to create them). For a quick-and-dirty patch, 3b as is or modified to fit a round backing is *the* simplest design.

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From what I've seen of artwork of this variety, it's difficult to get something like option 1, with its huge amounts of finicky detail, to come out in any way that actually looks good up close. You could conceivably do it by putting in noticeably more time and effort, but I don't see that it's particularly better to the degree that would make that worthwhile.

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It's not something you could do in embroidery on a 5" patch, no. I've seen that design *done* (the Great Seal of the Soviet Union, fwiw) on that scale, but you're right in that a lot of the detail is lost. Option 1 is an Okudagram design, and most of those aren't really meant to be cloth patches. Stickers, maybe, but not patches.
Despite that, I like it anyway.

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Option 2C looks awfully patriotic(US). That could be good (if they like the mindwarp of having russian lettering on a red-white-and-blue patch) or bad (if they don't like being mistaken for patriotic americans).

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Yeah. About that, I'd just like to note that the United States doesn't have a monopoly on red, white and blue.

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I would say, if you go with any of the options 3, it looks cooler if the thin part of the swoosh is behind the lettering, and the thick part is in front - suggesting that the ship departed the world, flew under and past the lettering, and then back up and away.

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That's a good point, thanks for the suggestion.

---

"Besides, it was a new coloring book for her and part of her function. A win-win situation."

---

...this is, scarily enough, a very good description of how and why I do stuff like this.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Sirrocco]

Wow, I fail. I'd had no idea the Russians were running with red, white, and blue these days. That does change things significantly. I had known that they were not uncommon colors (France springs immediately to mind, with GrBr not too far after) but there are an *awful* lot of US-origin fen running around, with the obvious knee-jerk response. If you're just picking colors randomly out of a hat, that's something to avoid. If you're showing your own colors, that's something else entirely.
Also, 3B may be easy from a design perspective, but the finicky bits with the globe would not necessarily be all that easy from an embroidery perspective (which was what I was going off of when I said that.) Also, if you're *going* to use a picture of the globe for a group that uses Ptichka as its flagship, it seems like it really ought to be the other hemisphere.

[M Fnord]

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If you're just picking colors randomly out of a hat, that's something to avoid. If you're showing your own colors, that's something else entirely.

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Well, *technically* if I was aiming at using Ptichka's national colors, I'd either use the red/yellow combination from the USSR or the blue/yellow from Kazakhstan. Why Kazakhstan? Because as of right now OTL the Kazakh government are the ones who own Ptichka, as well as the remaining Energia hardware and everything else at Baikonur that Roskosmos isn't actively using (and probably a good chunk of that, too).
Speaking of, I'm starting to lean more towards using option 4 as the official flight crew patch, because the simplicity of the design and the heraldry aspect is starting to grow on me. Never fear, though! The other designs will eventually be used for other Soviet ships; I'm nothing if not recycle-friendly.

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Also, 3B may be easy from a design perspective, but the finicky bits with the globe would not necessarily be all that easy from an embroidery perspective (which was what I was going off of when I said that.) Also, if you're *going* to use a picture of the globe for a group that uses Ptichka as its flagship, it seems like it really ought to be the other hemisphere.

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Globes are actually pretty simple; everybody knows the rough shape, and that's all you need for a 5" patch. We're not talking Google Earth fidelity or anything here.
As for the location, a) that's what my best clipart globe looks like, and b) it *is* showing where Ptichka took off from; remember that the VVS crew is mostly American/Canadian, and they took off from the middle of Wisconsin. ---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Bob Schroeck]

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We're not talking Google Earth fidelity or anything here.

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Although it wouldn't be hard with handwavium, and wouldn't that be just too cool for words?-- Bob
---------
One of the primary differences between the Left and the Right is their attitude toward the Future. The Radical wants the Future to have gotten here yesterday. The Reactionary wants the Future quietly shot and the corpse buried where no one can find it.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[M Fnord]

Hokay. So, after reading various critiques, suggestions and whatnot, and then more Hamletesque dithering over the subject than was probably necessary, I've finally gotten around to making the tough calls and rendering the final-and-I-mean-it-dammit designs:

Thanks everybody who added their $0.02 for the suggestions, the criticisms and the comments. As a reward, have a wallpaper on the house.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Kokuten]

And with bonus 'inspiration points', credit for the concept (and the frame for the patch) goes to Comrade Fnord.

The Hephaestus 'unit patch', flagging for uniforms or identification purposes.

sans black background. Simple, clean, three-color patch.

The Hephaestus 'Maker's Mark', to be found on most anything released or created by Hephaestus. Usually not blatantly obvious, back panel or inside a panel.. Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979