New Work: Automobile Spiral Print Series
Monday, May 20, 2013 at 9:35PM 
1966 Ford Mustang - 19 3/4" x 19 3/4" - Moab Slickrock Metallic Pearl Paper - Limited Edition of 20Today is a great day. I have finally finished a pet project that I have been working on for nearly 3 years. I call this latest series Auto Spirals for lack of a more clever name. This series is for the petrol (UK Version) or gear (US Version) heads out there who share my passion for classic automobiles. The lengthy amount of time it took to complete this series is largely due to finding a printing method that I liked, and could easily reproduce myself. That required a few key pieces to fall into place.
Lamborghini Countach - 19 3/4" x 19 3/4" - Moab Slickrock Metallic Pearl Paper - Limited Edition of 20As I have discussed before on this blog, I came into ownership of a large format Epson printer a little over a year ago. I had a scale in mind for this series that would require a minimum print width of 20 inches. Not only that, but I wanted the substrate (fancy term for paper) to be something new and also a little different than your standard white paper. I happened to come across prints produced on Legion Paper’s Moab Slickrock Metallic Pearl and really liked the finish. For collector automobile prints this paper seemed to be a perfect match. It is very glossy and turns greys and whites into a nice subtle metallic color, which is perfect for giving a little extra something to car chrome. I have noticed the metallic sheen also comes through on bright colors like reds, blues, and yellows. This is ideal for the type of series I had in mind with brightly colored classic automobiles.
Ferrari 250 California Spyder- 19 3/4" x 19 3/4" - Moab Slickrock Metallic Pearl Paper - Limited Edition of 20What I had not anticipated was how hard it would be to work with a metallic paper. Moab’s Metallic Pearl is engineered to run on large format, pigment and dye based, printers. That I now had with the large format Epson. While Moab recommends working with their provided ICC Profile for printers, I found that I could get better results developing my own method. It is hard to predict exactly how your colors will reproduce on this particular paper. This is simply because your computer monitor cannot reproduce the metallic look of the paper. White on your monitor becomes a pearlized metallic color when printed. Perfecting the colors required a bit of trail and error. Since this series was going to feature several color tint and shade changes , like red for example, I ended up fine-tuning the artwork by comparing what I saw on my screen to smaller scale sample prints I ran on the actual paper.
I added as much detail as possible to each automobile to create a realistic depiction.
My process for getting the colors to where I wanted them went something like this - printing a sample on the paper, adjusting the colors and brightness, and then running another sample. Luckily this did not take too much time and I was able to get the colors to reproduce almost exactly as I had pictured in my head. The biggest challenge I found producing this artwork on the Metallic Pearl was that greys seem to print darker than they appear on the screen. It required adjusting the brightness of individual elements so that they would appear correctly. I tried several printer profiles and each seemed to have their own quarks. If I found one that solved the issues with the greys, it would throw the reds out of whack. But, with a little bit of time and patience I managed to get exactly what I wanted out the paper.
The Moab Slickrock Metallic Pearl creates a metal looking sheen that really captures the light.
The automobile designs are made completely out of vectors in Adobe Illustrator. I used photo references to brake the car down into individual shapes. Each change in color you seen in the final print is an actual closed vector shape. During the initial construction, I used what I call the techno-color method to make sure all the vector shapes cleanly met up with no overlap. I outlined this process in a post way back in December of 2011, which you can read here. I wanted the option of having a clean wireframe model at the end in case I wanted to explore other design ideas.
Here is a peek at the vector shapes that make up the Countach Spiral.
Once I had all the shapes created, I used various tints and shades of the primary paint color to create dimension. I think the final result looks great, but it did create some issues during the printing process, which I mentioned earlier. The “spiral” part of this design is meant to separate this series from other illustrated rendering or automobile paintings. I think the car spiral as a backdrop adds visual interest and makes it unique. I made the decision early on that the cars that make up the spiral would be a nice contrasting color to the large center car. The effect it creates is almost abstract in nature.
Creating reflections in the chrome as well as the metallic look of the paper really makes these details pop.
How did I decide what cars would make up the first series of prints? Basically, I picked my favorites. I grew up in the 80’s and the Lamborghini Countach was easily the one car every kid had on his wall. It was pure eye-candy. The Mustang was another iconic car that every kid grew up dreaming about owning. It is a classic piece of Americana and kicked off the muscle car wars between Ford and Chevy. The Ferrari 250 Spyder California is a car that I came to be familiar with in the last few years. I felt that if I was going to feature a Lambo, I also needed a Ferrari and the 250 is a legendary automobile. I also really liked the shape of the Spyder and thought it would lend itself pretty nicely to the composition I was looking to create with this series.
Each automobile in the series comes in a limited edition of 20. The prints come signed and numbered.
If interest is high for this new series, I plan on developing even more automobiles in the future. I was even toying with the idea of offering the customer a custom color combo, so you could choose the paint color for the spiral and center autos. I also would like to do some contemporary super cars like the Lamborghini Gallardo and Ferrari 458 Italia, but don't worry, I plan on working on more classic vintage autos too.
I wanted this series to be for anyone who has a love and passion for automobiles and design. These two elements easily go hand in hand. To me, what makes this series truly special is the printing process, and how the design and paper work together to create an interesting and different look and feel. So head on over to my store, MovingTheMerch.com, and pick yourself up a print. Stay tuned for more new work in the future.
Cheers, Ben.
