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Introduction and some questions

Sukunai Kitsune

New Member
Hello there,

I've been interested in various mediums that could help extend my skills when it comes to still visual media and that has taken me from both the worlds of fine arts and more commercial arts. I am currently a 2nd year illustration major at Marywood University and in highschool I majored in Graphics and Printing communications.

Even with both of those very different forms of training there is still a huge area which is still foreign to me. In highschool I worked with equipment that would normally be found in a print shop and screen printing equipment. So when it comes to things that would be found in a sign shop I have no idea where to begin and find myself many times at a loss when I walk into our local sign shop. Hopefully this forum will be just what I've been looking for to help fill in the blanks.

I'd like to start off with a couple questions that have been bothering me for the last couple months.

1] I work for a small 3rd party controller company known as Desktop Arcade [www.desktoparcade.com] where I paint custom artwork at request. The problem that comes up pretty often is that it takes several hours, anywhere from 6 to 20 or 30 hours, to paint each controller and I have seen a quite a repeat designs where most of the time consisted of laying down a tape mask.

My question here is I have seen and heard of people basically printing out a mask. I'm a little confused as to what these are made out of and is there a way to reuse these masks?

2] In an attempt at extending my portfolo a little bit I've been interested in things such as wall scrolls and I don't know the first thing about where to go or how to prepare to create a couple wallscrolls other than sitting there painting each one.

Any help would be really appreciated.
 

Cadmn

New Member
you can buy paint mask material at most sign supply companies you can cut by hand or you can get cutter/plotter from ??300-30,000 or more If i understand correctly you ar wanting to mask to create pc boards so the type of mask might be the question its been 20 years since I made 15 once in 20 years does not make me anywhere close to knowledgeable so this is best guess scenereo
 
H

HSG

Guest
Before I bought a plotter I cut everything by hand. It's always an option if you want uniformity or are airbrushing. I took a look at the website and if you are painting these by hand, I hope they are paying you well. The company should invest in a small plotter/computer system for you to use. Even if they do, there is a learning curve that will take some time. You will have to scan your art and convert everything to outlines in a program like Adobe Illustrator before the plotter will cut them. Artwork and scrolls can be done in this manner and be cut out of mask in any size. You will still have trouble with a mask that extends over the sides of the boxes. It might be worthwile for you to invest in your own system. I make masks for all kinds of applications. Feel free to contact me.
 

imaSIGNr

New Member
imaSIGNr

sounds like you may want to reuse the mask you're talking of. With a vinyl mask you can't reuse the mask and when you peel the mask off you need to be aware of the tack force pulling on your substrate. Have you thought of making a stencil ?......imaSIGNr
 

Sukunai Kitsune

New Member
Cadmn said:
you can buy paint mask material at most sign supply companies you can cut by hand or you can get cutter/plotter from ??300-30,000 or more If i understand correctly you ar wanting to mask to create pc boards so the type of mask might be the question its been 20 years since I made 15 once in 20 years does not make me anywhere close to knowledgeable so this is best guess scenereo

Actually I'm just painting and air brushing wooden boxes.

I originally started hand brushing it completely and out of frustration one night, after having a bad case of shakey hands, I started using tape to mask off areas finding that actually regular clear packaging tape worked the best. I do still have issues where even when I'm cutting a mask I'll get a bad case of my hand locking up or shaking so I wanted to look into other ways to make a mask.

If I was to start using something coming from a plotter I would probably just shell out the extra money to have it done at my local sign shop. The problem is I'm not even sure what to ask for when I walk in there.

HSG said:
Before I bought a plotter I cut everything by hand. It's always an option if you want uniformity or are airbrushing. I took a look at the website and if you are painting these by hand, I hope they are paying you well. The company should invest in a small plotter/computer system for you to use. Even if they do, there is a learning curve that will take some time. You will have to scan your art and convert everything to outlines in a program like Adobe Illustrator before the plotter will cut them. Artwork and scrolls can be done in this manner and be cut out of mask in any size. You will still have trouble with a mask that extends over the sides of the boxes. It might be worthwile for you to invest in your own system. I make masks for all kinds of applications. Feel free to contact me.

If we were a larger company we probably would be interested in picking up a plotter but also if it were up to the boss we would be getting a C&C machine. Really we're more like hobbyists than an actual business at the moment.

It is a bit of a relief that I can actual do the outline work in Illustrator since I have a decent amount of experience with it. I was a little worried about how to get the designs into an outline form.

Right now we use a local sign shop, Signs by Tomarrow for anyone in North Jersey or the Scranton, PA areas would probably know it, but if they have any problems then you can expect a pm from me.

imaSIGNr said:
sounds like you may want to reuse the mask you're talking of. With a vinyl mask you can't reuse the mask and when you peel the mask off you need to be aware of the tack force pulling on your substrate. Have you thought of making a stencil ?......imaSIGNr

Yea I would like to reuse the mask but I can see the issues with reusing it given how much vinyl stretches when you try to peel it off something.

I have tried stencils in the past a few times and had alot of issues with running paint and just the size of the things [29"X14"]. It could be a case of that I'm just stuck doing it the way I do now but thought it would be worth seeing if there were any other options.
 
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