onelegout
05-14-2007, 09:50 PM
== What is stenciling? ==
Stenciling is a masking technique used to paint patterns, designs, or logos using spraypaint.
Stenciling has recently become popular as a Graffiti technique used by street artists all over the world.
The basics of stenciling described here are taken from my article 'Stenciling: The beginner's bible'. Although this was an article which I originaly wrote for graffiti artists, the techniques it describes are identical to those that case modders use to paint designs on their cases.
== Methods of stencil design ==
There are many methods of designing stencils:
1. Hand drawn - Exactly what it says on the tin, you draw the stencil out yourself, cut out, and spray. this can be difficult and it takes a lot of skill to get it right.
2. photocopy - Find a photo that you like, stick it in a photocopier and resize it to a suitably large size with the photocopier set to high contrast. This, in my experience, never works, you loose a LOT of detail and it only works with certain images. The results are also messy and generaly look bad.
3. Trace a photo - place a sheet of acetate over the photograph, use a permenant pen to colour in the shadows, placing the appropriate bridges, and then cut out. This can produce very good effects, but can equaly turn out bad. The downside is that you are not left with a computer copy of the design, so it is not easy to produce larger versions at a later date. (If you wanted to do a multi layer, you would then have to use another sheet of acetate for the highlights and midtones.)
4. Photoshop - There are many ways to produce a stencil in photoshop, and i will deal with them later.
== Aquiring an image ==
If your stencil is to be a pre-made logo, you will not need to read this section.
If, however, you want an stencil an image, there are several ways to aquire this base-image:
Many will argue that the best way is to take the photos yourself. Others belive that the most respectful stencils are hand drawn. Most prefer to use stock photography, as more often than not, it is impossible to create the image yourself.
The stock photography site that I use is http://www.sxc.hu
Others can be found by searching for 'stock photography' in google.
Another way to find images, is to use google image search. http://images.google.com
== Converting your image into a stencil using Photoshop ==
Once you have the image on your computer, you must convert it into a stencil in photoshop (other photo editing software can be used such as Paint shop pro, or The GIMP (the gimp is free, search for it in google). One method for doing this for this can be found here: http://www.stencilrevolution.com/tutorials/tutorialsview.php?id=4
Here is a more simple way:
Firsty you need to remove the background from the image, do this by selecting the background using the select tools such as magnetic lasoo, and delete it. Another way is to simply use brish tool to colour over the background in white so that you're left with your subject that you want to stencil.
desaturate the image
http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/jdbnsn/onelegout/1.jpg
Then go to filter>blur>Gaussian blur, and blur the image a just enough to soften the image while keeping as much detail as possible.
Once this is done, go to image>ajustments>brightness/contrast, turn the contrast up to full, and play with the brightness until it is a simple black and white version of the original image, the detail of the image should be simple but easily recognisable.
http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/jdbnsn/onelegout/2.jpg
If there is not enough detail, then you have blurred your image too much, simply click edit>undo, to undo the blurring. Play around with different amounts of blurring until you are happy with your image.
Now, imagine cutting out the black bits of your image, and you may find that you have a problem. If a white part of your image is surrounded by the black bit you're going to cut out, then this is called an 'island'. You need to find a way to attatch the island to the rest of the stencil and the normal way to do this is with bridges. Bridges are extra bits of white area which are used to hold your stencil together, take for instance the letter 'O'. If you were going to cut out the letter O the middle bit would fall out, so instead, we connect the middle bit to the outside using two bridges at the top and bottom, to make a shape like '( )'.
As you become more used to stenciling, your skill at placing bridges will develop.
You can cover the marks left by bridges using a pen or a brush and paint.
Print out your image onto paper.
Stenciling is a masking technique used to paint patterns, designs, or logos using spraypaint.
Stenciling has recently become popular as a Graffiti technique used by street artists all over the world.
The basics of stenciling described here are taken from my article 'Stenciling: The beginner's bible'. Although this was an article which I originaly wrote for graffiti artists, the techniques it describes are identical to those that case modders use to paint designs on their cases.
== Methods of stencil design ==
There are many methods of designing stencils:
1. Hand drawn - Exactly what it says on the tin, you draw the stencil out yourself, cut out, and spray. this can be difficult and it takes a lot of skill to get it right.
2. photocopy - Find a photo that you like, stick it in a photocopier and resize it to a suitably large size with the photocopier set to high contrast. This, in my experience, never works, you loose a LOT of detail and it only works with certain images. The results are also messy and generaly look bad.
3. Trace a photo - place a sheet of acetate over the photograph, use a permenant pen to colour in the shadows, placing the appropriate bridges, and then cut out. This can produce very good effects, but can equaly turn out bad. The downside is that you are not left with a computer copy of the design, so it is not easy to produce larger versions at a later date. (If you wanted to do a multi layer, you would then have to use another sheet of acetate for the highlights and midtones.)
4. Photoshop - There are many ways to produce a stencil in photoshop, and i will deal with them later.
== Aquiring an image ==
If your stencil is to be a pre-made logo, you will not need to read this section.
If, however, you want an stencil an image, there are several ways to aquire this base-image:
Many will argue that the best way is to take the photos yourself. Others belive that the most respectful stencils are hand drawn. Most prefer to use stock photography, as more often than not, it is impossible to create the image yourself.
The stock photography site that I use is http://www.sxc.hu
Others can be found by searching for 'stock photography' in google.
Another way to find images, is to use google image search. http://images.google.com
== Converting your image into a stencil using Photoshop ==
Once you have the image on your computer, you must convert it into a stencil in photoshop (other photo editing software can be used such as Paint shop pro, or The GIMP (the gimp is free, search for it in google). One method for doing this for this can be found here: http://www.stencilrevolution.com/tutorials/tutorialsview.php?id=4
Here is a more simple way:
Firsty you need to remove the background from the image, do this by selecting the background using the select tools such as magnetic lasoo, and delete it. Another way is to simply use brish tool to colour over the background in white so that you're left with your subject that you want to stencil.
desaturate the image
http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/jdbnsn/onelegout/1.jpg
Then go to filter>blur>Gaussian blur, and blur the image a just enough to soften the image while keeping as much detail as possible.
Once this is done, go to image>ajustments>brightness/contrast, turn the contrast up to full, and play with the brightness until it is a simple black and white version of the original image, the detail of the image should be simple but easily recognisable.
http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/jdbnsn/onelegout/2.jpg
If there is not enough detail, then you have blurred your image too much, simply click edit>undo, to undo the blurring. Play around with different amounts of blurring until you are happy with your image.
Now, imagine cutting out the black bits of your image, and you may find that you have a problem. If a white part of your image is surrounded by the black bit you're going to cut out, then this is called an 'island'. You need to find a way to attatch the island to the rest of the stencil and the normal way to do this is with bridges. Bridges are extra bits of white area which are used to hold your stencil together, take for instance the letter 'O'. If you were going to cut out the letter O the middle bit would fall out, so instead, we connect the middle bit to the outside using two bridges at the top and bottom, to make a shape like '( )'.
As you become more used to stenciling, your skill at placing bridges will develop.
You can cover the marks left by bridges using a pen or a brush and paint.
Print out your image onto paper.