Easy to make Custom Appliques

EDIT: WARNING: Please do NOT use the adhesive I used in this piece. Turns out it had a strange reaction to the acrylic on my window and hazed it slightly. I am investigating this to see what exactly happened. Until then, my recommendation of using Elmer's Glue still holds. Just mix some Elmer's with water and apply with a brush. AFAIK, Elmer's does NOT attack plastics


Well, I was trying to repaint my original side panel and I accidently bent part of my dremeled design. On attempting to bend it back into shape, it ended up looking like an ugly wave so I ended up just trashing and using my spare pre-windowed side panel (doesn't everyone have one? ). Anyhow, I decided that I simply don't have the time to dremel a new one, so I decided to make my own applique. This was inspired by a case I saw in Maximum PC. Some Canadian guy wrapped his computer with vinyl (American flag design). He had a window in it and the vinyl over that part appeared perforated. That gave me the idea to use simple transparencies and a color printer. Since I have a laser printer, I had to make a quick stop by Kinkos.

I originally wanted an Anime design based on a water theme or ice, but after searching for one hour and getting inundated with pop ups for Hentai, Porn and Bukkake (what the hell is that?), I gave up and settled for this "Ghost in a Shell" pic:



All you have to do is print whatever picture you like on a transparency. Unfortunately for me, the local Kinko's had a color printer, but they only did color transparencies on copiers; so this is actually a second generation image and thus doesn't look so good. As you can see, the transparency doesn't look very vibrant by itself. The colors are pretty blah looking. Problem here is that transparencies are meant to have a background - or at least projected onto one. So the idea is, to provide a background for the colors to really stand out yet allow light through to give it a glowing effect when the case lights are on.



I was originally going to use tracing paper, but it wasn't quite thin enough and didn't diffuse the light like I wanted. So what I ended up using is simple tissue paper that you use to wrap gifts with. This stuff is very thin and quite effectively softens light.



As you can see here, the colors in the image look much brighter and vibrant than before.


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I was gonna use good old Elmer's glue for this project but Staples only had a huge honking tub of the stuff for sale so I ended up getting this stuff instead: 3M Adhesive for mounting. Kinda expensive (around $8 bucks - probably cheaper outside of New York) but it works pretty well. This stuff isn't permanent and wipes off pretty easily with a mild cleaner and paper towels so it's actually a pretty good substitute for Elmer's.



So all I'm doing here is spraying the back of the transparency with the adhesive. Since I'm adhering the transparency to the tissue paper, I used the tissue as drop cloth (might as well kill two birds with one stone ).



After spraying and sticking the image to the paper, I just used a card to wipe out any wrinkles in the tissue (I'm using my Green Card here but a credit card or whatever will do). It doesn't have to be perfect but you want to try to get rid of any major wrinkles. If you're using Elmer's, you can take your time with this as Elmer's takes a few minutes to dry. This spray stuff I got dries a bit quick so I had to be faster.

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Here she is all glued up and in front of a lamp. Not bad .



Ok, this part is optional, but I think it makes the 'etching' look a lot more natural and part of the case rather than a transparency you simply slapped on with some glue (even though, essentially, that's all we're doing here ). The idea here is to cut out unnecessary parts of the design and make it integrate with your computer behind. Of course, the best solution would be to print your design on a transparency that's slightly bigger than your window and have a borderless, outline-less design. But since neither of these cases fit for me, we gotta do some cutting.



You want to cut off borders and stuff like that - anything that makes the picture look like... well, a picture. The more complex your cuts, the more natural it'll look. When cutting near or around a human body, try to be as precise as possible. Don't cut limbs off or inadvertantly cut a sliver of arm off. It'll look really bad. Since humans are so used to looking at other humans, the smallest inconsistencies come blaring out and will ruin your work up to this point.

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Very good post, I can't believe how much people spend on them,
I have made them in the past and will continue to do so, if you can scan a print and have access to an inkjet printer then you can have what ever you want ( custom ) and for $10 or less you get 5 to 10 of them ( number of sheets in pack).

There it is ready to go.



Now, just spray the front of the image...



When you're sticking the design to you're window, you'll probably end up moving it a bit to get the exact position you want. This is ok. Just be sure to wipe up any residual glue with a damp paper towel.

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And there's the finished product. Doesn't really fit the theme of my case, but I'm sick of looking for a good Anime picture that works so changing this will have to wait (if anyone can find a good Anime picture with a water and/or ice theme, please PM me!). Anyway, one really good thing about using Elmer's or this 3M stuff is that it is not permanent and easy to clean off. I'm definately gonna change this applique later on so that's a huge plus for me.

Not bad, eh? For a couple bucks and some simple tools, you can make your own custom applique. Now get to work!

will do this I have a window thats so boring maybe this will liven it up

Also, it'll probably look better with a colored CCFL rather than a UV one such like I have. The colored ones are brighter and really bring the colors out of transparencies MUCH better than UV can.

wow, very nice. I never did like appliques, because they're all the same, lol....it's nice to know that it's easy to make your own.

great job there.this might be sticky (pun intended)

I read an article a while back about the same thing, but isntead of glueing it to the window, they used one of those paper protectors so they can swap images as they please.

there is also the possible double layer method so that you can sandwhich an image between 2 clear peices

very sweet looking. the stuff that i see in this forum never ceases to amaze me.

that looks incredibly sweet...i think i might have to do something like this....seems a lot more original than a stencil....and i think something with red on my case would look sweet with the uv cc's behind it...ill definitely try this....and yes...this would make a great sticky.

i probably will use your techique when or if LOL i ever get around to doing a lexan case, great job

Here is the link to the ink-jet transparency film trick mentioned above http://metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=1&path=mods/coloured_appliques/index_eng
P.S. Real cool looking mod and that "B" word is real bad if you know your porn you may want to yank it before a mod dose

Awesome mod, this is exactly what I wanna do with my new computer case (when I get it). One place you can look for some high quality anime pics is www.animewallpapers.com , you can browse through alot of titles, if ya see a pic you like you can always edit it with photoshop .

Great Job!

Excellent choice of subject, Masamune Shirow is my fave manga artist, though he sometimes falls on the hentai side

Stedeman said:

Here is the link to the ink-jet transparency film trick mentioned above http://metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=1&path=mods/coloured_appliques/index_eng
P.S. Real cool looking mod and that "B" word is real bad if you know your porn you may want to yank it before a mod dose

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Are you referring to 'bukake'? What the heck is that? I'm serious, I really don't know. I always knew about 'hentai' but this bukake thing is new to me...

i just did a google image search on bukkake...and lets just say im glad the safesearch was on....i turned it off and quickly found out what bukake or bukkake is....if you really want to kno u can go search it....but like i said...its DEFINITELY NOT FOR MINORS!!!...so if you are under 18 please do not look for this term.