Advice On Marking Up My RV-8?

My relative and namesake, John V. "Scarsdale Jack" Newkirk, was Squadron Leader of the famous Flying Tigers during World War II (he was KIA in 1942, so I never actually met him).

I recently bought a flying RV-8 with the idea of keeping Jack's memory alive by marking it up to resemble, as closely as practical, his Curtiss-Wright P-40 Warhawk. I had grand visions of stripping the existing paint from the -8 and cloning Jack's scheme, but the quotes and lead times I'm getting are in the stratosphere ($15K+ and two years' wait).

In the meantime, I thought I'd at least put on some vinyl. The toughest part, frankly, are the jaws. Shark's teeth on EABs are almost cliché these days, and the cowl of the -8 is very different from the P-40. I'm experimenting with a stock decal from Aerographics, but am not sure I like it, and it's easy to wrinkle vinyl on a curved cowl surface.

Can anyone recommend an artist who could at least paint on some decent shark's teeth? I'd appreciate ideas on this - as well as any other aspect of this project.

PandaCub said:

Can anyone recommend an artist who could at least paint on some decent shark's teeth? I'd appreciate ideas on this - as well as any other aspect of this project.

Click to expand...

John Stahr did an outstanding job painting our plane.

http://www.stahrdesign.com/

I think your sharks mouth graphics work well considering they are stuck on.

Like Mike says though, talk to John Stahr - he is the perfect artist to make something like this possible. If you don’t want to go the whole repaint route, maybe strip and repaint the cowls to have the P-40 paint scheme on the nose, and then have that ‘blended’ into the aircrafts’ existing paint scheme, like it’s peeling off to reveal a warbird underneath?

EdH said:

I think your sharks mouth graphics work well considering they are stuck on.

Like Mike says though, talk to John Stahr - he is the perfect artist to make something like this possible. If you don’t want to go the whole repaint route, maybe strip and repaint the cowls to have the P-40 paint scheme on the nose, and then have that ‘blended’ into the aircrafts’ existing paint scheme, like it’s peeling off to reveal a warbird underneath?

Click to expand...

I think that’s a great idea! Would look very cool!