Big Printing

If you're like me, you set out to make a playset and you think, hey, I'm an artist, the art part of this is a cinch. Once I get the vinyl sealing down, once I figure out the design and how to do the snaps I'm home free. You never really get around to doing the math. If you are like me.

Well, turns out this 22 inch wide set I've made actually covers a lot of real estate. Each wall has 3 sides: 10x10, 10x13, and 10x10. So that means I have to generate two 33 inch wide 10 inch tall posters to decorate both sides of one wall, plus a 9 x 22 inch piece for the floor. Stack three of them together and you're talking about not only a lot of pixels, but a lot of printing! Plus, since it's 10x10 you have to print on 11x17 paper and, if you have a ton of them, have it cut at a printer's shop. Whew. So tonite I came home with a big pile of Mego playset prints:

They look really great. These are all color laser prints---I'm dealing with small numbers of dozens of different images so any offset printing is out of the question. The quality of a color laser print is pretty great these days, though, and I made a friend who works in the copier business who gave me a sweetheart deal. Otherwise I don't think these displaysets would be at all affordable.

The one thing I feel obligated to point out is that the art for the floorboards in the displayset are made of two prints joined together with double-sided tape. At 22 inches wide there's no more reasonable way to generate the art. So I design the floor with that in mind, so the seam is somewhat hidden. After that, you see the magic of clear vinyl take over and makes everything shine...