Playing With Lasers
My friend Tony had a pretty cool idea combining art with skate decks. I had the means through a few friends and clients to give it a try. So Tony and I teamed up to see how far we can take the idea. This is what we have come up with thus far.
The idea:
To do laser engraved artwork on the bottom of a skateboard deck. This is not an original idea by any means but it is an idea that we wanted to see if we could do together based on our resources.
Resources:
Artist: Tony Price is taking of this end of it all.
Supply Line: I talked with one of of our clients and got us hooked up with a line of blank Candian Maple Wood skateboard decks.
Production: One of 803 Labs clients in Rock Hill (Bryson Engraving Plus) does an awesome job of laser engraving plaques and trophees. He said he would be down to help out as well.
Tony has sent me the first test graphic and I sent it off to Bryson Engraving. This is what came back.
After seeing the board first hand and talking with Bryson Engraving these are the ideas to get more depth, texture and coolness to the boards:
1) Work with 8 bit gray scale images. The laser picks up tonal values and knows to burn more or less depending on the darkness of the original image.
2) The more intricate the better. On the little curly cues at the bottom next to CBA turned out really cool. They are small and precise.
3) Working with a plain wood board would look much better.
4) Big blocks of 100% black look odd. Break up space with gray scale values or more detail in the images.
5) Text looks great, Due to the concave of the board on the sides the lettering (or anything in the image as well) it looks a little sallower. This is due to the fact that the laser can not read on a z axis. It is still basing it on the original starting point on the board.
So now it is back to the drawing board for Tony.
Stayed tuned for the next batch.

