Blackhawks Aviation and Jack Follows

I had an early love of flying from reading comics featuring the Blackhawks and Enemy Ace. I always enjoyed the additional pages that provided technical information about the planes. I never became a pilot, but I still enjoy comics about air and space adventures. There was an cachet artist named Jack Follows, whose cachet I also enjoyed. I thought about creating a series of comic aviation cachets using the style that Jack Follows used. The above cachet features the Grumman (mis-spelled on the cachet) F5F-1 Skyrocket used by DC Comics' Blackhawks from 1941-1949. The cachet is based on the Jack Follows cachet below, right down to the plane being shot down in the background

Jack Follows (1927-1997) was an English cachet artist, who provided hand drawn cachets, which became very popular with collectors. Follows was known for his cartoon like cachets which combined the themes of women, aviation and comic characters. An article was published in the hobby publication First Days March 2009 pigs 57-58.

When his drawing hit the market, they are usually considerable priced and prized

a few internet finds of Jack Follows cachets

Star Trek - what if

I had the thought of using the Washington postal envelope from 1925 and altering the Washington figure on the idea of What if Vulcans had landed on earth and helped lead the US to victory in the Revolutionary War, assisted by a couple of red shirts. After the fact, I thought I could have written NCC-1701 on the bow of the boat.

These envelopes can be found relatively inexpensive, so I had no apprehension about altering the stamp portion of the envelope.

Star Trek

I guess Ive been watching too much of the TV series "Face Off". It is one of the few shows I can watch and truly enjoy, with my wife. We enjoy the artistic competition (no back-stabbing bullshit) that produces quality work. I enjoy the transformation an actor or model can undergo with quality and often subtle make-up

I have often heard actors say, that playing the villain was more interesting than playing the hero. So I looked to some of the Star Trek characters in the recent movies and noticed the designs used on the faces to bring out their characters. My sketches are Taylah from Star Trek Beyond (2016) and Nero from Star Trek (2009)