Thinking of a nickname for my electric vehicle, I came up with the phrase, “electric dragon.” I tried some versions in Magic Canvas, and hit gold after a few tries and tweaks…t-shirt style, and ‘electric dragon robot’ as the keywords.
I saved a few other designs, but this was by far the best. The largest version will go on the door to my laser room. The acrylic dragon is screwed up (compared to my expectations), but turned out pretty well.
The smallest will wind up as wall art in some unexpected location of the house.
Both? I was presuming the car though. Acrylic and 3M tape will do just fine outdoors (though if you’re the type to change cars every few years it’s probably really hard to get off!)
I just had an aha! moment, thank you. There is acrylic that needs a project, and a sheet of double-sided 3M tape. I plan on owning this car for years; when it comes time to trade it in on better technology, removing any tape will be the dealership’s job.
I know right where on the car it’s going to go. I’ll apply 3M product to opaque, pre-masked acrylic; engrave/cut and paint the exposed part, then seal it. Let it rest while I give Lucifer a bath.
This design can’t be a stencil-type design without more work. There are cutouts inside cutouts and no connectors. I’m not ready to get down in the weeds of a graphics program to make it a stencil, or single cutout. I could manually place the necessary bits after the main part has been adhered, but that’s a challenge for me.
Have you tried reverse-weeding? It might be an easier way to do a stencil type of design. (You probably already know what that is, but just in case, basically you put transfer tape over the top of the design, remove the backing and then weed out the parts you don’t want. Then it’s easier to place it, smooth it down and remove the transfer tape.)
I used the thin eco turquoise acrylic so it could conform to any car curve without too much stress. Fresh out of the laser it was slightly bowed up, but it flattened after a few minutes.
