Help on a stalled concept

[hockey week]

Ok, so looking at puckdrawn.com the other day, I saw a Mike Ivall Design, who has always done great work, but I thought he missed what seemed like an obvious choice. If I'm coming close to ripping off his design, please say so, but I wanted to get that it inspired this idea right off the bat.

Here is the link: http://www.puckdrawn.com/puckdrawn/2010/07/winnipeg-jets-concept-by-mike-ivall.html

It's the secondary that inspired this. Instead of a maple leaf INSIDE a jet, make the maple leaf into a jet. A stretch? perhaps, but in my head it worked, and maybe the entire problem stems from this simply not working.

second was to combine it with the circular design that was put on all Royal Canadian Air Force planes up to and including World War II, creating that circular logo design that's so popular in hockey right now. In the design, I found that i needed another color, and adopted the blue color from the old RCAF flag, as seen below:

So, without further adieu, the concepts as it tried to evolve.

The first seems way to static, and the leaf-plane seems unbelievable. The swoosh designs are missing something, or are slightly off. background detail? different arrangement of words? I don't know, which is why I'm here, to ask for the ideas from everyone here. Where do I go from here? Thoughts? C & C?

[raysox]

REALLY cool idea. I think the middle one would be the best start. Maybe make the plane more plane like, with thicker outlines.

[Davidson]

thats a great idea, really nice. you have an issue tho, i really think you are going to have to turn the leaf the right way round. i reckon it can be done tho.

[wildwing64]

A maple leaf-winged fighter? Awesome!

Perhaps for the third logo, you could make the plane bigger, and add red to the middle of the swoosh.

[hockey week]

Updated the logo based on things that were said here. I really wish I were better at photoshop, is there a way to smooth out those lines on the plane?

I also added what I hope is a subtle background, the outline of the leaf from the logo put on planes, which would be maybe one or two threads thick in stitching. Thoughts? is it an improvement? where to go from here?

[kbaker19]

That is awesome, very cool idea. It looks much better with the stripe down the middle of the swoosh thing.

[Gfonk04]

I really like the idea, especially using a fighter for the logo instead of some commercial air behemoth. Maybe try making the swoosh (or whatever you want to call it) resemble the layout of the Canadian flag, so red-white-red vice white-red-white. Several American fighter squadrons use that design motif in their unit patches.

Also, you could make the points on the tail into the jet's vertical stabilizers, giving it a more modern "canted" look with twin tails, instead on the old-fashioned single tail. This would also make it look a little more like the F-35, which the concept you used for inspiration used. And you could use the whole base of the leaf for the intakes instead of cutting that portion more or less in half.

PS - Is the pun in your thread title intentional?

[hockey week]

I really like the idea, especially using a fighter for the logo instead of some commercial air behemoth. Maybe try making the swoosh (or whatever you want to call it) resemble the layout of the Canadian flag, so red-white-red vice white-red-white. Several American fighter squadrons use that design motif in their unit patches.

Also, you could make the points on the tail into the jet's vertical stabilizers, giving it a more modern "canted" look with twin tails, instead on the old-fashioned single tail. This would also make it look a little more like the F-35, which the concept you used for inspiration used. And you could use the whole base of the leaf for the intakes instead of cutting that portion more or less in half.

PS - Is the pun in your thread title intentional?

Idk if the air-intake change works, but here it is in concept. I had to adjust the dimensions of the maple leaf to make the twin-tail work. Here is the update, I really like the swoosh change, I had planned on a red-white-red stripe on the jerseys anyways, so it works on an extra as-yet-undesigned level.

And the pun was semi-intentional. I realized it as I was writing it, and I liked it...figured I'd leave it for whoever noticed. Kudos for that lol.