Any Graphic Artists out there?

[zcases]

I thought I would try here....seems there is an incredible variety in skills at this site.

Until someone develops an inkjet head to attach to a CNC, I need a good way to paint the mountain models in the attached pics. The detail needs to be accurate. I have an incredibly talented graphic artist doing these in Canada, but customs and shipping is proving to more of a pain than its worth.

Anybody interested in discussing this further?

Send me an email to zcases (at] frontiernet (dot] net or a PM on this site.

Thanks
Scott

[HayTay]

zcases,

A half glance at the samples and the first thought that popped into my head was 'nope, not my thing'. The second thought was screaming AIRBRUSH! Have you tried any airbrush artists in your area? Someone that's been doing airbrush work for a few years could probably turn them out in a jiffy.

I'm a bit envious of the professional airbrush crowd, those people definitely have some skills.

Then again, have you thought about making a thin 3D contour mask for each color and painting them in-house?

BTW, what, exactly, is your avatar?

Just my 2 cents,

[zcases]

3d color mask - I will do some Googling about that. Is googling a verb now? Anyway thanks, sounds like a good idea.

C'mom.....you don't know Mr. Snowmeiser??

[HayTay]

Sorry, I must be going blind quicker than I thought. After taking off my glasses and getting closer to the monitor Mr. Snow Miser becomes more recognizable. You telling me what it was also helped me match the image locked in my brain since childhood with the one on your avatar. The tiny b & w avatar was definitely burning up too many of my calories while I was trying to figure out what it was. Thanks for the tip. I'll have to drag out my copy of The Year Without a Santa Claus and relive my childhood this Christmas.

You might have a bit of difficulty Googling '3D color mask' as I kind of made that up on the fly. What you may want to look up is vacuum forming. What I was thinking was you could base coat the entire model black then add a couple layers of different colors of green, brown, and/or grey to simulate ground and foliage. After that you would place a vacuum formed cover (say around .020" thick) with the next feature that needs to be painted cut out of the cover. Airbrush the features color or colors through the vacuumed formed cover cutouts then move on to the next model, assembly line style. You would have as many vacuum formed covers with cutout features as required.

You could have a cover for rivers, lakes, ponds and other water features. Another cover would be for making the mountains snow capped or to look like volcanoes. Another cover could be used for dirt roads, macadam roads, airport tarmacs, etc. You get the picture. I bet with enough vacuum formed covers and some creative masking you could make all kinds of features fairly quickly and inexpensively. After the model painting is completed a quick coat of some clear matte protective finish and you'd be all set.

I hope that's a better explanation of what I was thinking.

IHTH,

[Switcher]

C'mon now, don't forget about Mr. Heat Miser!



.

[HayTay]

C'mon now, don't forget about Mr. Heat Miser!



.

Yes, yes, Mr. Heat Miser, also.

Before we hijack this thread and send it off into directions unknown, you may want to move the above (and this) post to a more appropriate thread. I was thinking maybe one of the threads dealing with, what was that again, oh yeah, Global Warming. That's definitely it! Mr. Heat Miser has returned. A few posts that point the finger at Mr. Heat Miser will surely heat up the Global Warming debate.