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Doug Griffith
05-14-2012, 2:10 AM
I just thought I'd share a sign I created as a gift for Mother's Day. It will go over her closet in the "Red and Purple" room.

Some MDF, spray paint, and a laser got the job done. I had to tap my inner girl to design it.

232081

Mike Null
05-14-2012, 6:57 AM
That's a pretty spiffy paint job.

Steve Clarkson
05-14-2012, 7:48 AM
I agree Mike......I thought it was acrylic!

Dee Gallo
05-14-2012, 7:52 AM
Doug, your inner girl rocks! Great job, but really you MUST share some painting tips - that is a really complicated paint job and you did it perfectly.

Doug Griffith
05-14-2012, 11:10 AM
Thanks All.

The painting isn't as complicated as it looks.

Here's how I did it:
1) vector cut all pieces.
2) separate by color
3) apply spray mount to card stock
4) stick pieces back-side down to card stock (this keeps them from blowing around). Label each card with the required color.
5) apply spray primer (light coat first to keep fibers from swelling, then a few more applications) (Rustoleum)
6) touch up with fine sand paper where needed and prime again.
7) spray paint each color (Rustoleum Painter's Touch)
8) assemble carefully from the back-side.

The sign in the photo isn't glued together yet. Missing is a bottom layer of MDF offset inwards to give a floating effect. It was the base to glue upon.

That's about it.

Oh, the final version has red glitter paint applied to the lower letters. It helps them pop.

Doug Griffith
05-14-2012, 11:15 AM
A few more tips about painting:

Edges that will be seen on the finished item get a first coat of fairly heavy primer to seal in what char is there.

Edges that are not seen don't get directly painted. Just over spray. Otherwise fitting the parts together gets difficult.

Tom Schulze
05-14-2012, 11:27 AM
that is a really slick way of doing that. thanks for sharing!

Doug Griffith
05-14-2012, 11:58 AM
Doug, your inner girl rocks!

The teddy bear really pulled it out of me. My design ethic is more tech with a retro-futurism flare. Like that? I just made that up.

For anyone interested in how I drew the teddy bear, i started with a jpeg I found online.

From there:

In Illustrator!!!

1) traced it as single lines.
2) got rid of the bitmap because I didn't want to spend time trying to copy it as-is
3) applied a brush stroke to each line that tapered at the end. (this gave it an organic look)
4) used a vector direction flipping script to point the taper in the direction I wanted
5) applied rounded endcaps and corners to the strokes (an important step)
6) converted the strokes to outlines.
7) adjusted the nodes so everything flowed smoothly
8) united all of the outlined strokes using the pathfinder
9) released the compound paths and ungrouped.