Night Ops

I've been talking to a number of members here, and there seems to be a lot of interest in getting an "official" night ops patch. I'm willing to put in an order at one of these custom patch places, and then distribute them on here (with funds being used to cover costs of patch creation), but first we must decide on a patch.

I have worked with a few of the members on here to design a prototype patch, and i'll be adding a picture of it in the following post. If you want to submit your own design, feel free to post it in this thread. If you have critiques or suggestions for existing ones, post it! after this thread has been around for a while, i'll add a vote to this post, and we can vote on the one we want to use.

Any suggestions/submissions/ideas, post them here.

Edit: it seems that the board attachment limit has been reached. feel free to upload your MSpaint/photoshop creations to an imagehost and post the link. Or just vote for mine.

Ok, here's a very rough prototype of a patch that Myself, Teutoni, and Eden have put together:

http://oi49.tinypic.com/34zbupx.jpg

The top banner, obviously, simply says "Night Ops". The bottom banner says "Nos Possideamus In Nocte", which is latin for "We own the night"

The symbol is two crossed lockpicks, a hook and a c-rake, behind a dagger, an SOG Pentagon.

I like it.

And shouldn't it be a wrench instead of a hook?

I tried one with a tension wrench, but it just didn't look quite right. Same way with a flashlight - it just didn't seem like it would translate very well to a patch. So I ended up using two lockpicks instead. I figured that a hook and a c-rake best symbolized the duality of opping. One is used "hard and fast", to get it done as quickly and efficiently as possible, the other is used "slowly and stealthily", with precision and finesse being most important. I've always believed that opping is about finding that perfect balance between speed and stealth, based on whatever situation you're in.

Of course, it could be that I'm thinking way too far into these things... but most military patches have some sort of symbolism or deeper meaning, so I figured ours should be no different.

Makes sense. And you'll hear no argument over the SOG from me.

pentagon hnngg

Im no good with Paint or Photoshop, but I like the idea for a patch. I would definitely pay for one. Keep the ideas coming, if I have any I will gladly share.

Neon green on black background seems to be the agreed colors of the "branch" so to speak.
It would be less crowded by forgoing the knife entirely, leaving only the insignia of the crosspicks, perhaps enlarged.
I think it's important to distinguish between a coat of arms design, which could be more elaborate on a guidon or pennant, versus a simple "service" patch ironed onto a uniform.
The only other suggestion I could think of is simplifying the motto to 'Carpe Noctem.' or even rendering it in English as 'Seize the Night.'

You could just use "We own the night." straight up, it's not trademarked or anything. You should probably chage the latin translation at least - the way that's been translated, it sounds as though we physically posess the night. That may well be true, but a better translation would be in the sense that we are "masters" of the night, or something like that.

I was thinking this would be closer to a unit patch, some of which are pretty elaborate. If more people would rather see the knife go, i'd be willing to get rid of it.

As for the text, i'm all for changing it to english. "We own the night" has been our motto of sorts for a long time, and i'd really like to stick with it.

what's a unit patch?

Unit patch is a good one, and as far as the quote I think Latin would be cool but the original saying fits the best, in my opinion, as it fits the whole. I feel that the only people worthy for the patches are the people who have been on ops before, specifically people with photos of them on the op.

I'd be willing to let anyone who's a contributing member on the site here buy one - i know there are a number of guys who aren't too keen on posting pictures or doing dare ops, but who are excellent oppers none the less.

Something I threw together in MS paint, unofficial:

i like this one, but with the motto change.

idealy the offical one wont have my GIMP Freehand short bus font, but you get the idea

I chose the wrong shade of green but you get the idea.
The hexagon could be replaced with a pentagon and in that way represent the idea of the knife from the original, or maybe just CIA secrets. Every image should stand for something.

For reference, "Night Ops Green" is #02d21e.

I know this is an old thread so I hate to revive it unnecessarily, but did anything come from this? I'd be really interested in helping with something like this, I'm a graphic designer by profession so if anyone was still interested I wouldn't mind putting together some vector patch designs.

Well they are still being worked on. The only reason we don't already have them is a lack of spare cash. However this will hopefully rectify soon so you may get a PM.

Black Bear, like Teu said these are only on hold due to a lack of cash right now. If you'd like to try your hand at designing one, or cleaning up my sloppy MS paint drawing, feel free. The better we can get these looking, the easier it'll be to get prototypes made later this year.

Could we get a count on how many people are interested in purchasing a patch or two?

This is the concept I was turning over in my mind for a long time, I finally just traced it and scanned it into the computer.
It obviously needs refinement but what the hell.

That's really nice. I'm a fan.

Glad you like it. The problem with full length picks is that they looked cumbersome when crossed, so I simply cut the traced shapes in half at the handle and it looks more symmetrical that way.
Now I'm thinking I need to somehow turn up the contrast or vectorize the rough outlines, turn them green and dye the rest black.

mib wrote:Glad you like it. The problem with full length picks is that they looked cumbersome when crossed, so I simply cut the traced shapes in half at the handle and it looks more symmetrical that way.
Now I'm thinking I need to somehow turn up the contrast or vectorize the rough outlines, turn them green and dye the rest black.

Very much liking the idea of the signature "NO green and black"

Very much liking the idea of the signature "NO green and black"

Yes, well that's one of the only things we've hashed out so far for the "official" insignia.

Well definitely keep up the good work. Luckily nothing has to be decided on until there is enough spare cash to purchase them.

I love to necro threads. The older the better.

The smartest, most reasonable thing anyone would do is not to add any identifying marks/patches/signatures/insignia to their gear. Because patches on your vest are mall ninja and I know it, no matter how much I want a nice NO velcro patch. But perhaps, if we theoretically really didn't care about that, I can propose this design instead - as a keepsake, rather than something you attach to your gear. It might look nice if properly made. Lots of small details and shit, so making it the way it is will probably be impossible... I made this in 30 minutes please don't judge.
I have a full transparent PDN with layers and all. So I can change anything whenever I want. Let's get this going again.
And I stole mib's lockpicks.

Neat. I should try drumming up a design or two when I have the time, but I've got a lot on my plate at the moment.

Here's a random update: NOPCON skill tabs for those who attended will be inbound very soon. A general Night Ops patch will follow shortly.

Groovy.

Ghost wrote:Here's a random update: NOPCON skill tabs for those who attended will be inbound very soon. A general Night Ops patch will follow shortly.

Finally! Action. What are skill tabs again?

They're like perk points in Skyrim and you can spend them to upgrade your lockpicking or agility or whatever.

Ghost, I know you like to take your time during ops but 8 days is a new record.

Edit - September 5th, 2015.
*cough* 14 days.

*COUGH* 39 days.
*COUGHCOUGH* 7 MONTHS days.

I know it looks retarded at the moment, but maybe something like this? This looks more like a morale patch. Are we going for something more symbolic?

I'd prefer something more... elemental/symbolic. Night Ops is about the art, not the tools.