Whatcha need?<br><br>Got beta testers on tap for this batch, but there's generally room for more. Got photos of your work posted somewhere?<br><br>- E
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Whatcha need?<br><br>Got beta testers on tap for this batch, but there's generally room for more. Got photos of your work posted somewhere?<br><br>- E
I've had my fingers crossed hoping someday to see Rash 1 decals and will be your first customer ! I have only done early redline resto's , but with the variety of decals you have I'm tempted to try some of the later cars ! <br> Mike.
Mike, I got your message and I sent you a PM via the messaging system. RASH-1 is on my list but I need good photos of the top of the car -- and of the sides, since they wrap. If you got 'em email 'em to me and I'll put them in line next. The photos in the URG aren't quite enough.<br><br>- E
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Always, always, always. The advantages are (1) it's always possible to tell it's a resto (2) it can come back apart at any time to fix problems.<br><br>I use #1 or #2 stainless aerospace grade button head caps from www.fastener-express.com and get my taps and tap drills from Micromark.<br><br>- E
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Thumbnail for regular Flying Colors Buzz Off added. These are the pinstripes for either the blue or green enamel Buzz Off.<br><br>Expert decal set. Use of decal setting solution recommended. Careful trimming generally required.<br><br>- E
Gee whiz, that Rash-1 artwork was a pain!<br><br>First, it's nowhere near flat, so it's impossible to start with a photograph and lay artwork over the photograph. Second, despite the fact that I've got nearly 30,000 fonts installed, there was no perfect match for either numerals "31" or for the "LUCAS". So both sets of text were tweaked.<br><br>Then there was that "GoodYear" logo....<br><br>So how are these done? This is for the folks who have asked.<br><br>Well, first I got a hold of a Rash-1 that had enough paint left on it that I could cut a flexible template to match the outlines of the artwork. Once I got that done, I laid the template out flat and scanned it at 2400 dpi. I imported that into Corel Draw and drew the outline over the bitmap. I exported the vector art through an .ai file into 3DS MAX, where I also imported a photograph of the car from dead above over the nose. I took the key dimensions of the pattern with a set of calipers and sized the vector artwork. I scaled a billboard textured with the image of the car's nose to match the vector outline. At this point I drew in vector artwork for the outline of the white portion as well. I cleaned up the white stripe and outer outline. <br><br>I started font matching software and got a close match, having instructed the matcher to ignore bottom serifs, which are easy to build. I drew in vector art for the "31" and tweaked it vertex by vertex until it was a better match for the actual numbers, which includes adding the bottom serif on the "1". This was then attached to the outline of the white area and surfaced, which turned the "31" into a hole in the middle of the white stripe.<br><br>I ran the font matcher again on a blow-up of the "Lucas" text from an ebay auction, and got a pretty good match. The text still needed elements thickened, so I did that, again, vertex by vertex. Duplicated the text and spun it over to the opposite side. Layered it above the unfinished yellow shapes.<br><br>Which left the "Goodyear" logo.<br><br>I'd found some before for other HW art, but not a good black/white one with a single outside border like this needed. I googled this image:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.logodesignworks.com/logo-designs/logo-design-g/main/GoodyearB.gif">www.logodesignworks.com/l...dyearB.gif</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Knowing this would be very small, and not worried too much about antialiasing, I de-rezed the color of the Goodyear logo to binary and imported it into PC Paint. Yes, I still use Paint. It's a good, basic program. I filled everything outside the outer rim to a solid color, and then filled the outer rim to match the gap between the rim and the background. Then I filled the solid color to match the logo background, and inverted everything. I made sure this texture was square.<br><br>I applied a U-V mapping icon to the surfaced yellow pattern on one side and applied an untiled material using the black/white 2-color GoodYear logo as an opacity mask. I tweaked the mapping icon's scale and location until the logo was in the right spot. <br><br>Which promptly gave me a single square of yellow with a logo cut out of it, making the remainder of the yellow surface invisible. That's what I get for using black/white instead of true alpha. Do I have a simple way of moving the binary color into an alpha channel or of extending binary color opacity beyond the mapping icon? Doesn't look like it. Let's tile the material... which gives me a string of five or six GoodYear logos on each side....<br><br>Hmmm. Dirty fast solution -- copy the yellow surface downward in z, make it a matching solid yellow, and punch a hole in it under the correct logo location. The other logo punchouts are still there, but there's yellow behind them, so they're invisible. Done.<br><br>Mirror the yellow assembly to the other side. Build a new material with the logo mask tiled -1 in U to undo the mirror transform.<br><br>Apply colors as shown, background dark green, and superimposed watermark for the image shown.<br><br>For printing....<br><br>Ah, that's a little different.<br><br>Turn the diffuse yellow in the opacity mapped yellow materials to black. Change all other solid colors to black. Make the background white. Lay out a convenient tight pattern to fill an 8.5 x 11 decal sheet. Integrate and place registration markers. Render everything, which gives me everything in non-green as black over white.<br><br>This is my base coat layer, printed as extra heat white onto the clear film.<br><br>Hide what would be yellow and red artwork, leaving only the (black) white stripe. Render. This is my white final coat layer.<br><br>Hide everything. Unhide the registration marks and the (black) yellow artwork. Render. This gives me a layer to be printed in spot yellow.<br><br>Hide the yellow artwork. Unhide the "Lucas" text. Render. This gives me a layer to be printed in spot magenta over the yellow, which produces bright red in that order.<br><br>Stack and register the bitmaps (which were rendered at 2400 dpi) back in Corel Draw as four separate aligned layers.<br><br>Print sequence on the Alps is white undercoat, spot yellow, spot white, spot magenta, finish re-melt. No dithering, which makes a huge, huge difference for folks who have one of these printers but who might never have tried spot printing. Both the yellow and white go over the white base, and the magenta goes over the yellow. The finish buffs everything down smooth.<br><br>- E
Thanks for the tip on the cutter, Eric. I've had the bit come loose and chew a few plastic bases. Luckily, I keep all my resto's. I'll be posting pics soon. I can't wait for the decals you promised me. I've been using J.B. Weld to put them back together. 3 drops of it, then a rubber band on the front and back for 24 hours. I haven't used screws because the drill bits have been beating up the posts pretty bad. <patience, Grasshopper>. I'll figure it out. I'm having a ball doing these Super Vans. <br>~Craig
Torino Stocker thumbnail added.<br><br>- E