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Object Tattoo: Sketch Plan

Outside of school, one of my various side projects involves helping my husband design and build guitar effect pedals. So for me it was a no-brainer to choose a metal pedal enclosure as the surface for this project.  Here's what a finished guitar pedal looks like:

 

These are some graphics I did awhile back for the 'Imperial Fuzz' - Russian themed, for the vintage Russian transistors inside. The graphic was done in Adobe Illustrator and then printed onto the enclosure with a special printer. As you can see, the ink is beginning to wear off in places. So this project is a perfect opportunity to test vinyl, which could be a great option on its own, or as a stencil.


Here is the blank enclosure I will be using for this project:
 

I began by having a look at all my earlier sketches and considering some of the feedback I received in class, which mainly centred around bringing in some of the different patterns and shapes from my various designs and simplifying them into something re-produceable on a vinyl cutter:

 

The one I decided to centre my design around was this guy:


This design was way too intricate for the vinyl cutter, not to mention needed more definition of positive and negative space, so I began playing with ideas. But first, I did a trace of the face, sides and bottom of the enclosure. Obviously I will have to do some precise measurements before drawing it up in Rhino, but for now, this was a quick and easy way to create several sketches.


Here is my design so far. It still needs some refinement, and I haven't settled on a pattern for the wing... but I am open to suggestions!


The dark areas represent the vinyl-filled areas. Incorporating the knobs into the design was tricky... the crow's eyeball was an obvious choice, and the rest was made easier by using simple repeating shapes and patterns. The concentric circles are shapes that appeared in previous sketches, but when applied here, conveniently symbolize the vibrations of sound. The triangular sun/star shape also appeared in a previous sketch, but here looks more like a compass rose, which is more autobiographical for me, map fanatic that I am.

I think a deep purple vinyl, if such a thing is available, would look super sharp on the gold surface. This is intended to be a vinyl sticker/wrap, but I'd also love to try it as a stencil. I can't wait to refine this even further and see how the finished product looks!







Comments

  1. Bryan CeraOctober 15, 2017 at 5:44 PM

    Argh, this is going to be awesome! Can't wait to see the vinyl.

    ReplyDelete

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