Posts tagged 'production':
Suckpax 2 costume card fabrication
We are making up the Mary Papers costume card. The wife beater she wore posing for the photo has been cut up into small squares, and a hole punched in the front cards. A jig is used to align the fronts and backs for glueing. Rittenhouse Archives gave me essential advice on construction of costume cards. We put it to use, and it saved a lot of time, and gave superior results. Thanks!
Rolling the glued cards.
My Dads record collection accepted for Distroboto
After a long delay, I received an acceptance from Distroboto in Montreal for the trading card series “My Dad’s record collection”. I had sent them samples months ago, but it was to an out-of-date address. Louis at Distroboto really got into the cards, and I brought up 50 packs to see how they will sell via his machines. Louis has converted cigarette vending machines to vend art.
I got a surprising kick out of delivering the packs to him in Montreal. He was appreciative of them, but beyond that, I got a buzz off of the experience. These were a creation completely my own. It must be similar to the feeling an artist gets delivering finished pieces to a gallery.
Backs of the cards getting the first stamping.
Stamping the boxes. Distroboto does not need the outer boxes, but I felt the need to do them up. Future distribution through other venues will probably require boxing. It was fun to design and make them. And I felt an increased pride in my work with the boxes.
I have a few hundred blank white boxes for just such purposes. It is our standard 24 pack box, and when we did our last die-cutting for Suckpax 2, I had blank white ones cut also.
The cards themselves are cut up albums. It is surprising what happens when you slice up a large design into small pieces. The small framed sub-set piece of an image, randomly generated, can be very interesting. I go through the hundreds of pieces, and sort them into 4 piles: “A” or best images, which are faces or just fun; “B” images, which are intriguing; Text only sections; and solids or blanks. The wrappers are made up from the inner sleeves. Packs are made up of a mix of both A and B cards.
suckpax 2 cards arrive
We unloaded the cards from the Van, and collated them on the big table.
Glueing up the boxes. We finish up specials and other inserts tomorrow, and begin final assembly of boxes on Wed. The Sucklord is visiting the Lab tomorrow. He will oversee the finishing of various elements, sign cards for inserts, and decide the final recipe for box ingredients.
Sheets of Suckpax 2 cards hot off the press
Had a great day at the printers yesterday! A great team, relaxed and expert. Several pressmen and managers came around to check the progress, and meet and greet. Some of the cards are a bit raunchy, and the whole job is very different from their typical work. I think a few came around to see who had brought in such odd stuff.
I was excited about the printing, and they put up with me running around with my camera. Above are the stack with fronts only printed. These are about to be flipped over for backs to be printed next. They have a huge clamp that grabs the whole stack, then pivots 180 degrees and puts them back down. I arrived at 11am for “press check”, which is to observe the first sheet printed for quality. The fronts were right on the money.
Punching the printing plate for mounting in the press.
The most important issue for press check was the backs. The Sucklord has put secret messages on the backs, and the color balance is critical to have the whole decoder system work properly. We had done multiple experiments pre-press on the same material, to get the art as close as possible. I had expected to need some adjustments at the press (raise or reduce opacity of ink) to get it right, but to my happy suprise it was exactly correct the first sheet, no need for changes.
The sheets have to sit and dry for a day, and will be cut up into individual cards Friday morning. I will be picking them up in the afternoon. On the same trip I will be picking up some materials for special inserts.
Suckpax 2 proofs
Went to the printer today, to review the proofs for Suckpax series 2. Some adjustments required, all for my own cards. All art files provided by The Sucklord flew through perfectly, without any need for changes. Went over printing plans, they are scheduled to flow through the press next Wednesday. I will pick them up Friday (yeah!). I blurred out some faces not ready to be seen. In the closest row you can see some of my prototypes for a series on Tractors, which I fit into empty slots.
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