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HenryJLittlefinger posted:crossposting from the Wacom thread. Are you effectively looking to vectorize your scans? Because if so I'll second your question. I've made some lino prints and would like the option of scaling and printing them in other ways.
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# ? Sep 22, 2020 17:23 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 12:57 |
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Trabant posted:Are you effectively looking to vectorize your scans? Because if so I'll second your question. I've made some lino prints and would like the option of scaling and printing them in other ways. Yes, precisely. I've been doing lino cuts as well and would like those vectorized. See, I don't even know the most appropriate language to use for what I want.
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# ? Sep 22, 2020 17:59 |
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Yeah, I'm more or less in the same boat -- the only reason I know the term is because I ended up researching how to get a logo engraved into aluminum, and that required scanning old magazines and paying a guy on Fiverr to do the actual vector tracing... Anyway! I went down the same tablet/Adobe/etc. research path but realized I didn't want to spend hundreds of bucks, so I'm always on the lookout for alternatives. Inkscape is free and using its built-in functions might be the way to go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiFiKXlMQ2g but I haven't tried it yet. I figure it might be even more effective if you're like me and print in monochrome. I'll scan a print or two later and report on how well it worked. Also, do you post your prints anywhere? We have a trad art thread here and I'm always curious about others' works.
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# ? Sep 22, 2020 19:13 |
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Trabant posted:Yeah, I'm more or less in the same boat -- the only reason I know the term is because I ended up researching how to get a logo engraved into aluminum, and that required scanning old magazines and paying a guy on Fiverr to do the actual vector tracing... Awesome, if I can save a few bucks because I don't need all the Adobe functions, that would be great. I can always get it later if I want to complicate my life further. I'm very curious about your experience with Inkscape once you acquire it. quote:Also, do you post your prints anywhere? We have a trad art thread here and I'm always curious about others' works.
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# ? Sep 22, 2020 21:16 |
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I have mostly good news! That tutorial worked for my needs -- I scanned in a (badly overinked) proof I had nearby and followed along. The reason I say mostly good news is that it will almost certainly require trial and error, in addition to some prep of the image. Note that the below are my-dumb-rear end-trying-things-out steps rather than any kind of actual instruction. Here is a part of the initial scan (I made a Godzilla print couple months ago for reasons): Zoomed in on some of the teeth: I opened the scan in GIMP to remove the grey background of the paper itself, which worked pretty well using the Select by Color Tool and hitting the Delete key. I was left with just the black print and the transparent background. Pretty sure that I should've made a few more colour selections to capture all of the paper background, but this worked well enough. And honestly... it may have been completely unnecessary. As in, I don't even know why a transparent background would be needed here. I'll play around with that... eventually. Anyway, I exported that as a .png, opened it in Inkscape, and followed the video. This is where trial and error may be necessary. I kept the test simple and used a Single Scan, Brightness Cutoff, Brightness Threshold = 0.6. Let the computer chug along for a few seconds and exported the resulting object as a standard .svg file. Here it is zoomed in the same way as far as Inkscape would let me, to 25,600%: No trace of pixellation at all, so I'm calling it a success. It's something I can tweak if I see dropped features from the original print. Hope it works for you too -- beats buying hardware and software and doing this by hand. As for sharing art, I feel you. Prior to posting the prints on SA (and then elsewhere) my audience consisted of... my wife, basically. But being a hobbyist, I think the stakes are low and goons are generally encouraging. So I my art-like stuff and every so often produce something decent. Completely understood if you don't feel like doing so though.
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# ? Sep 23, 2020 00:38 |
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That looks really good. I bet GIMP + Inkscape will do a lot of what I need. Most of what I do is black ink on white paper without a lot of texture, just bold lines. Should be even less work than your print to get a high res vector file. The Godzilla print is dope on its own, I like that a bunch.
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# ? Sep 23, 2020 02:44 |
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I want to get this poster printed for my friend's birthday, and was hoping for some advice: For size, the image is about 1900x2800, and I've heard the standard for printing is like 300ppi, which would mean this comes out to about 6.3x9.3" which is a bit smaller than I'd like. Since it's a pretty simple image, do you think sizing it up to something closer to 11x14" would be okay? Also, I was thinking about making the paper a little more aged looking. I've heard printing on regular paper, softening the edges, and soaking in tea does a pretty good job of that. Is there a recommended stock for something like that? I'm guessing the brightness of the paper doesn't really matter much. What about inkjet vs laser?
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# ? Sep 28, 2020 10:05 |
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Scholtz posted:I want to get this poster printed for my friend's birthday, and was hoping for some advice: If you print that at 11x14 you'll be looking at approximately 170dpi which is probably fine for a poster format. 300dpi is mostly important when you're printing something that has a lot of detail, or needs very crisp lines, or is going to be viewed close up. That being said it looks to me like that image has already been resized at least once as I can see quite a few obvious pixels at 100%, so you'll see those when you print as well. That'll be impossible to avoid unless you or someone else simply recreates the artwork (or you can find a higher resolution scan). Regarding the tea treatment, I'd say the thicker the paper you can get the better. If you're going someplace like FedEx Kinkos (or equivalent) you'll want to ask for cover stock or card stock – anything over 100 pounds (preferably 130 or higher if you can get it and they can print on it), and you want an uncoated finish, not a matte or glossy. If you're printing it yourself I'd say soak it in tea first, let it dry, sandwich it between some heavy books for a few days to flatten it back out and then print on it to avoid creating any running issues, but otherwise you'll want to go for a laser print. Inkjet will most definitely run, but laser is a bit more stable. It may still end up running depending on the type of toner used.
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# ? Sep 28, 2020 16:48 |
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Scholtz posted:Also, I was thinking about making the paper a little more aged looking. You can simplify things a bit by buying a sheet of a "natural" printmaker's paper, something made of mulberry or gampi like: https://www.dickblick.com/products/kitakata-paper/. It pretty much looks aged by default, and it lends itself to creating deckled edges if you want that too. I'll admit I haven't tried using that paper in an actual printer -- I've only used it for relief printing -- but I don't see why it shouldn't work. You might be able to get a sheet like that for less than $5 from a local art supply store, so it's not a huge investment. There's also the added bonus of those papers being of archival quality, so the print shouldn't degrade over time.
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# ? Sep 28, 2020 17:33 |
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I’m trying to find a graph I saw about a year ago, listing 4 or 5 different levels of realism in art...actually I think it was a bit more specific than that...like it included an explanation of the artist’s representational intent as well as the level of physical realism. Can’t find it anywhere.
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# ? Oct 4, 2020 14:34 |
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I have no idea, but this sounds cool as hell and I wanna see it.
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# ? Oct 4, 2020 15:31 |
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Does anybody have any recommendations for a quality archival mat board that doesn't totally break the bank? Maybe not something that lasts for 300 years, but 50 would be nice. I'm dipping my toes into self-matting and framing a valuable and sentimental collection of prints before the moldy hellhole I live in does too much damage.
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# ? Oct 5, 2020 00:12 |
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unlimited shrimp posted:Any good sites for funky/off-beat/pop culture-y/sci-fi-y type prints from independent artists? Besides the obvious Etsy or Redbubble stuff. I know this post is drat near a month old, but I sent ya a PM. I'll post it here for all to see as well anyway, have some prints for sale of my latest painting over in this thread.
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# ? Oct 7, 2020 18:41 |
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pandy fackler posted:Does anybody have any recommendations for a quality archival mat board that doesn't totally break the bank? Maybe not something that lasts for 300 years, but 50 would be nice. I'm dipping my toes into self-matting and framing a valuable and sentimental collection of prints before the moldy hellhole I live in does too much damage. I've had good experience with matboardcenter.com... I haven't shopped around so can't compare to other places but maybe this would be somewhere to start.
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# ? Oct 7, 2020 18:52 |
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I come from a digital background, print is new to me. Have a packaging job and a pamphlet job coming up, so I'm looking for good books that are easy to follow for prepress. Never worked with spot or die lines etc but I do have a basic idea that you need 300dpi and bleed. Any advice?
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# ? Oct 10, 2020 10:36 |
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My wife really wants to get an airbrush setup to play with/learn for cosplay purposes. Any recommendations for a decent starter kit in the 200-ish USD range?
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# ? Oct 10, 2020 19:19 |
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the_lion posted:I come from a digital background, print is new to me. Have a packaging job and a pamphlet job coming up, so I'm looking for good books that are easy to follow for prepress. You’re right on both counts. I’m guessing your job is process color (cmyk) and not spot color (Pantone)? If it’s the latter, make sure you look at swatches when you’re choosing colors, on screen representations are not reflective of reality. Some colors look better with a double hit (notably bright reds, oranges, yellows, etc). If process, make sure your documents are using CMYK and your blacks are rich black, not 0,0,0,100. Ask your printer about document settings for die lines and bleed, but generally speaking you should have 1/8 an inch bleed on everything at minimum. If it’s a job that requires precision, make sure you check it on delivery (or better yet do a press inspection, something that barely exists anymore but good printers should be open to), and don’t be hesitant to ask for a reprint if they didn’t do a good job. I’m mostly web these days, but I started out working with an old school designer doing lots of print, so I know a fair amount about the process and am happy to answer questions. It’s a fun process full of weird little gotchas.
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# ? Oct 11, 2020 13:10 |
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kedo posted:You’re right on both counts. I’m guessing your job is process color (cmyk) and not spot color (Pantone)? If it’s the latter, make sure you look at swatches when you’re choosing colors, on screen representations are not reflective of reality. Some colors look better with a double hit (notably bright reds, oranges, yellows, etc). If process, make sure your documents are using CMYK and your blacks are rich black, not 0,0,0,100. Thanks for this, will be a big help I'm sure.
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# ? Oct 12, 2020 08:01 |
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I'm wanting to take some of my comedy Photoshops and make some t-shirts out of them, but a lot of them arent super high-res because, well, they were just for SA Photoshop threads. I don't really have the skills to vectorize things easily but I'm curious if it's even necessary for some of them. For instance, would these designs at this resolution (and with these original colors) be suitable for shirt printing? https://imgur.com/a/gcyfHzk Drink-Mix Man fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Oct 21, 2020 |
# ? Oct 21, 2020 03:08 |
I did an oil painting workshop and really enjoyed it and thought the result was pretty good for a first time. I ordered some supplies to try to develop it as a new hobby and was wondering if there were any learning resources you guys could recommend for beginners. I have a experience painting miniatures which definitely helps with understanding things like colors and layering better but there's a lot that's new to me.
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# ? Oct 26, 2020 03:49 |
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a7m2 posted:I did an oil painting workshop and really enjoyed it and thought the result was pretty good for a first time. I ordered some supplies to try to develop it as a new hobby and was wondering if there were any learning resources you guys could recommend for beginners. I have a experience painting miniatures which definitely helps with understanding things like colors and layering better but there's a lot that's new to me. If you're trying to learn wet on wet you're in the wheelhouse of Bob Ross and you can watch any and all of his videos and they'll be applicable. Chances are you ordered a lot of the same supplies that he uses in his videos (in terms of paint selection) so you're halfway there. My only serious recommendation that everyone else may not have is to get odorless thinner or you'll drive yourself and your partner (not applicable if you paint w40k miniatures I guess) insane with the thinner smell.
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# ? Oct 26, 2020 04:01 |
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Yeah, seconding the odorless thinner. It's not really odorless, but compared to normal thinners (traditionally turpentine) it may as well be. It's still toxic in concentration though, so be sure you have some ventilation. Oil paints can be really drat toxic as well, so don't go sticking the handle of the brush in your mouth. Get a good supply of rags as well, cuz you're gonna need em. I don't know about online painting resources specifically, but here's my advice. General painting advice is fat into lean. Meaning don't put super thinned paint (or paint mixed with a drying accelerant) onto a still wet-ish layer or it'll crack once the paint's fully cured. Oils take an absurdly long time to dry completely as they cure through oxidation instead of evaporation. The nice thing is that you have plenty of time to work and blend the paints to your liking. Really though, just play around with the paints and see what you can do. Still-life is a great way to learn. When I was in art school, in my oil intro class our prof had us paint a still-life in a grisalle-esque (grisalle is basically a monochromatic painting, traditionally resembling marble. In my case it was just paint and the white of the canvas in more of a value study) fashion and wipe it down completely at the end of the class. Basically, much like anything else you learn through repetition. Don't apply paint to unprimed wood or canvas if you want it last and reasonable length of time. The oils in the paint will react with the fibers in the canvas and the wood and they'll start to decay. Paint thinner is toxic af, don't dump it down the drain. You can strain used thinner through a coffee filter and use it for a while. Once it starts to take on a permanent hue it's basically time to get rid of it. There are probably some places that will recycle used thinner, but I'm not aware of them. Basically just let it evaporate and discard the leftover sediment. As for using the paint, everyone has different techniques. I like to add a little bit more oil and a super small dash of thinner to make a nice fluid paint that glides onto the canvas. Don't be afraid to mix colors on your pallette either. For me color mixing and matching is one of my fav parts. dog nougat fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Oct 26, 2020 |
# ? Oct 26, 2020 04:56 |
VelociBacon posted:[...] dog nougat posted:[...] I was thinking to start painting some of the photos that I took on vacations since I can't really travel now. I'm avoiding painting any people or complex figures for now so it'll just be little temples and cosy buildings and stuff like that. Are there any beginner mistakes that I should look out for? I'm really not all that familiar with the technique.
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# ? Oct 26, 2020 06:47 |
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Well, sounds like you can get supplies super cheaply. Pretty jealous. As for techniques. Here's a basic list of various techniques and some blurbs about them. How I was taught, was to work the midtone area first, the dark areas second and then the light areas last. Blending the areas together as you work with various mixtures of opaque vs translucent paint and applying glazes. Squinting to look at your reference or whatever helps you see the values (difference between light and dark) more clearly. Keep your brushes clean and try not to let your colors get muddy. Remeber, that shadows aren't actually black. Look at a shadow portion of an image and you'll notice that the colors tend to shift towards blue-ish hues in a lot of colors, obviously this isn't the case with yellows as they don't really turn green in a shadow. Overall, there's a general shift towards cooler tones in shadow areas though. Basically look at and analyze the colors of a given thing throughout the highlights to the shadow areas. It can be daunting, but accept that you'll make mistakes along the way as part of the learning process and try not to get discouraged. Oil paint is a kinda slow medium, so take your time and try not to rush it too much. Even if you hate your painting, keep working at it you might be surprised. If you get really frustrated, just step away and clear your head. dog nougat fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Oct 26, 2020 |
# ? Oct 26, 2020 15:49 |
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a7m2 posted:Are there any beginner mistakes that I should look out for? I'm really not all that familiar with the technique. Just watching Bob Ross doesn't really do much for actual learning other than mimicking. I'm on phone right now so can't link but check out James gurney on YouTube for a more pragmatic approach to starting pleinair painting like it sounds like you're going to be doing. I know he uses mostly gouache but try to learn more of the basic ideas. Namely limit your palette absolutely foremost. For reasonable 'regular' photos or vistas, I'd just entirely use the three cardinal colors and white. Interpret the changing hues within a piece as 'more' or 'less' of a color. For pleinair unless you're painting a ton of flowers or something, you really don't tend to see bright saturated single tones at all, so most values you'll mix will have at least the tiniest bit of every color to Grey it out a bit. Id approach a particular mood by using a triad of secondaries or if there's a particular mood to the piece then I'd start adding additional variants of similar hues to achieve more nuance to like colors within the piece. There's some other stuff that I can't remember off the top of my head rn but I always recall struggling with traditional painting until I was introduced to the idea of deliberately limiting yourself to force the piece to make more cohesive sense. Oh yeah, and to go back to the idea of 'greying' out your colors by adding a bit of other colors what I mean is that adding a colors complementary naturally cancels it out so adding a tiny bit of purple (red and blue) to yellow creates a yellow leaning Grey, blue plus orange (and here's one of the one spots I'll make an exception to bring up burnt umber as a wonderful 5th paint to contain on the palette as it's a generic good earth tone and also combines with blues amazingly well due to it being a combination of red, yellow, and black [so yes burnt umber and most umvers and siennas are essentially darkened oranges]) creates a cool undertone Grey.
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# ? Oct 26, 2020 20:52 |
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Hello! I applied for and was accepted for a writing position, but I'm always on the lookout for jobs that are going to scam me out of time and energy. I'd like anyone else's eyes on this. I'm inclined to take the position just to have the experience of writing professionally, and in this pandemic beggars cannot be choosers. However, I currently get paid $40/hour to come up with loving movie titles, so the pay they're offering seems low as hell to me. Here's the email I received: quote:Thank you for your response and your continued interest in CBR. The editorial team was thrilled with your sample articles and would love to bring you onboard as either a TV/Movies Features Writer or a Comics Features Writer. Please let me know which position you would prefer. Regarding the next steps, I would like to first provide you with a little more information about our trial period. The trial period lasts for 6 weeks, but compensation remains a standard rate during the period and post-trial. We ask for a trial period just so that you can get used to CBR’s style, and we can help you out along the way. I feel like these rates are really low. If I spent, say, 2 hours on a 400 word article, I'm essentially getting $5/hour because I have zero guarantee anyone's gonna see it. Anyone with experience writing for geek sites have any insight?
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# ? Oct 27, 2020 17:02 |
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I am not a professional writer and have no frame of reference to answer your question, but $30 for a 2,000 word piece sounds like a ridiculously small amount of money unless they receive an absolute ton of page views. Have they shared any information about their site traffic/average views per article with you? If not I would absolutely ask, they surely have the info available.
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# ? Oct 27, 2020 18:36 |
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kedo posted:I am not a professional writer and have no frame of reference to answer your question, but $30 for a 2,000 word piece sounds like a ridiculously small amount of money unless they receive an absolute ton of page views. Have they shared any information about their site traffic/average views per article with you? If not I would absolutely ask, they surely have the info available. I was just coming back here to say I refused the position! And this is pretty much why! The going rate for what they're asking is over 10x what they're paying. gently caress that. I am still going to pursue professional writing. I'm applying like crazy, but I want to actually eat food and pay my rent. I am, like most people my age, feeling a deep despair over all the entry-level positions asking for upwards of 6 years of experience. It's like a loving tragicomedy every time I open up LinkedIn.
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# ? Oct 27, 2020 18:53 |
I would like to know how published authors deal with people actually reading their book/s because my anxiety is through the roof and my novel doesn’t come out until December. I have NetGalley reviews coming in and I keep saying I’m not going to read them, and then I read them. I’m alternately on cloud nine, and wanting to pull the covers over my head and never emerge again.
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# ? Oct 28, 2020 19:07 |
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I saw this in the wild. How do people even make stuff like that? Do they use massive stencils?
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 13:47 |
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I would hazard that they projected the pattern onto the wall, though that implies working in low light conditions so you can see the projection. I suppose it's also possible that the mural was painted onto the panels piecemeal before they were installed during construction. I could well believe there's an 8'x4' printer you could use to make whatever mural you like for a relatively nominal fee.
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 14:55 |
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It looks like this on google maps from last year so I don't think the panels were changed. The panels are also made out of plaster.
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 15:01 |
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Usually mural painters use a grid scale system to keep track of things but they tend to just paint it as normal with sprayers after designing everything on paper. It could also be printed onto sheets and applied, of course. Some more possible info here: https://www.ocregister.com/2014/08/19/how-do-you-paint-an-ad-on-a-building-mural-artists-paint-the-town-big/
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# ? Nov 1, 2020 15:11 |
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I've had an idea/sort of obsession with altarpieces for a while, and want to make one. Ideally I'd make it out of wood or vacuum formed plastic, but I don't have access to a wood shop or the money to make that happen. Paper mache is basically my best option. I'd like to make it archival if at all possible, but that seems difficult without using acid-free fibers to make the whole thing ($$$). I have a stack of old newspapers, which I'm sure are not acid/lignin free. I'm curious about the longevity of using those fibers, but encasing them an acrylic medium or PVA. I suspect the acids would still eventually eat through fibers and possibly react with the encasement material and the whole thing would eventually collapse or lose it's structure. Anyone have any better knowledge about archival paper mache or have any ideas about neutralizing the ph of the paper to make this work in a more long-term way?
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# ? Nov 13, 2020 16:40 |
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dog nougat posted:I've had an idea/sort of obsession with altarpieces for a while, and want to make one. Ideally I'd make it out of wood or vacuum formed plastic, but I don't have access to a wood shop or the money to make that happen. Paper mache is basically my best option. I'd like to make it archival if at all possible, but that seems difficult without using acid-free fibers to make the whole thing ($$$). I have a stack of old newspapers, which I'm sure are not acid/lignin free. I'm curious about the longevity of using those fibers, but encasing them an acrylic medium or PVA. I suspect the acids would still eventually eat through fibers and possibly react with the encasement material and the whole thing would eventually collapse or lose it's structure. Newspaper tends to be pretty high in lignin, and will yellow/deteriorate quite rapidly in the grand scheme of things. There are deacidifying sprays you can buy, but I am not sure that would be cheaper or more effective than using acid free paper to begin with.
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# ? Nov 13, 2020 16:58 |
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Ah yeah, my research has brought that up. I'm looking for a super cheap solution if there is one. I have some acid free papers, but not enough to actually create the thing I want to make. I guess I could just make the thing out of regular rear end newsprint as a proof of concept, but I'd far prefer to make it once and not have to worry about it falling apart in like a decade or so.
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# ? Nov 13, 2020 17:04 |
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Lincoln posted:I’m trying to find a graph I saw about a year ago, listing 4 or 5 different levels of realism in art...actually I think it was a bit more specific than that...like it included an explanation of the artist’s representational intent as well as the level of physical realism. Can’t find it anywhere. I don't know if this is what you're referring to, but I found these overwhelming/wild/interesting diagrams made by Ward Shelley while looking around. Here's "Who Invented the Avant Garde": Just thought I'd share. itry fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Nov 16, 2020 |
# ? Nov 16, 2020 01:08 |
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I am not asking for legal advice but I’d like to know the thoughts behind the legality / ethics of designing things “inspired by” in creative works, specifically around character design and modeling, and then selling the files / models. Let’s say I want to create a miniature that is reminiscent of a fictional character without directly copying that character. As an example, I want to create a mini that kind of looks like John Wick. Tell, thin, long hair, beard, wearing a suit and holding a pistol. But I wouldn’t want to just scan pics of Keanu reeves - design something wholly new but when you look at it you go “this is supposed to be John Wick. After consulting with my lawyer, google, it seems like this is okay for personal use / parody / fair use, but it’s less clear on commercial use. I absolutely understand to just grab assets is a no no (such as using movie stills to advertise) but I’m less sure about things that are original but similar. My feeling is it’s okay since GW and other minis companies do this all the drat time, but I also don’t want to just do something that’s wrong just because everyone else does. Thoughts?
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# ? Nov 29, 2020 17:43 |
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Seems squarely within Fair Use to me. Like you say, people do it all the time. Edit: Which is to say that I think you're squarely within legal limits and certainly within ethical limits. I have friends who pay their bills with fan art. Companies can certainly slide into your DMs and make threats and send letters, and you'll do what they ask because none of us have money to fight them, but you'll also post it all over social media and we'll all repost it and make a fuss. There are also plenty of precedent for making designs legally distinct by changing X% of the design, and I think they'd be hard pressed to really trademark "guy with a beard and long hair wearing a suit and shooting people" anyway. mutata fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Nov 29, 2020 |
# ? Nov 29, 2020 17:50 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 12:57 |
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Watch https://youtu.be/xKBsTUjd910 - but basically that's almost certainly against the letter of copyright law. If you made a figureine of Mickey Mouse and sold it, Disney could sue you and win without problem.
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# ? Nov 29, 2020 23:23 |