Vinyl Pug
Starting this project, I really had no idea what I was looking for. I had no inspirations or need for a vinyl decal, so I just reverted back to the standard pug, of course. I couldn't use the same cartoon pug as my water bottle though, as that wasn't easy to separate into 3 colors. I found a new picture to use and Mrs. Proctor helped me separate the pug face into 3 colors.
Once I traced the image I expanded it and Mrs. Proctor worked her magic to make the lines around the pug face closed shapes so that I could easily change the colors to what I needed for separation into two colors for vinyl. The three colors I wanted to use were black, some type of fawn, and white for the eyes. I also had to manually create circles for the whit spots in the eyes since those were also not closed shapes. The face had an irregular shape to it but it looked like a typical fat pug. Time to move to the vinyl cutter!
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After saving my illustrator file to my flash drive, I transitioned over to the computer hooked up to the vinyl machine. I loaded the black paper first, as I had separated the three different colors into their respective parts in illustrator, and had to cut out one at a time. I opened the file in illustrator, and went file, cutting master 2, cut plot, and this is what showed up. I used the positioning icons to make sure I wasn't wasting any precious vinyl. Then I pressed SEND IT. I repeated this process with a black ears and nose outline and I cut the white circles out manually since they were so small and didn't need to be exact.
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Once all of the pieces were cut out, I placed the black and gold on the same sheet and lined them up as I liked them. This was, of course, after weeding out the excess vinyl around and inside the cuts the machine made with nifty dental tools. Next Smothered them with transfer tape and rubbed it really hard and vigorously with a rubbing tool thingy to get it to stick real good. Then I peeled it off, placed it onto my idea folder since it had nowhere else to go, and relied on the adhesive of the vinyl to overcome the transfer tape so I could peel it off real nice. Then I placed my tiny little white pupils on and called 'er a day!
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Summary
In this project, I learned a little bit more about illustrator. I still feel very inexperienced with the program and Mrs. Proctor's tips and tricks to make my project ready for the cutting master program were very helpful. I learned how to manipulate a picture to close off lines so the direct selection tool worked more effectively. I also learned how to use the vinyl cutter itself and how to position your file so as to not waste vinyl. Neat!