Painting the side of my panel for Halloween

[keithcorcoran]

So I set my black panel out on the lawn for Halloween decoration. Planning to set up a graveyard around it and some skeletal 7 foot ghouls digging a grave at the back of the truck.

Figured I'd paint a 'business' logo on the truck to complete the look and here's what I've come up with.

Anyone have an opinion.. 1, 2, 3, or 4?

I plan on distressing this a little after painting it. No, my truck is not THAT shiny. Just grabbed that photo off google for reference.



We usually do halloween pretty big at my house. Last year I didnt decorate but the year before I did this...

http://makezine.com/2011/11/03/creep...eepy-and-epic/

Usually a decent crowd of kids if the weather cooperates.

[NEWFISHER]

I voted #1 just because you can always re stripe or letter the lower area and include magnetic shapes for different seasons?

The haunt is AMAZING! good job.

[keithcorcoran]

forgot to mention.. this will probably all get sanded off by the end of the year when I dig into the body work.

[Highsider]

Funny stuff!
Caught me off guard.
Oh, and Halloween is a favorite holiday of mine!

I just read the "Funhouse" article.
Outa hand!

[youngrodder]

It's funny that you are doing this. I'm about ready to start on my 53 suburban project and I thought just that other day about pushing it out to the front of the house and using it as a hollween decoration. My idea was to run my smoke machine on the inside with the doors open and have some green lights inside. Then have the back doors proped open. I woud put the Candy dish inside. Missing headlight and all it looks creepy.

BTW I like option 3 best. Option 1 might be hard to read. They all looked cool though.

Marc

[keithcorcoran]

Yeah.. might as well make use of it since it was just sitting there.
I'm going to open the back doors and have a makeshift coffin hanging out of the back.

I thought about a fog machine under the truck and adding a red floodlight under there for an eerie glow.

The other plan is to wire up the blinkers since i have the red fender mount lights and have those and some dim headlights running off a 12 volt low voltage lanscape lighting transformer.

Lastly. I was going to wire the horn (or a loud horn) to a proximity sensor so when people walked in the area in front of the truck the horn sounded.

We'll see how far I get before halloween.

k.

[NEWFISHER]

Originally Posted by keithcorcoran

forgot to mention.. this will probably all get sanded off by the end of the year when I dig into the body work.

Then I pick #4

[iowaboynca]

Make sure to take pics and share what you decided to go with...

[Ferrofil]

I picked #1 because the other ones curved shape fits better on the doors I think
Youre plans for Halloween sounds like great fun, I hope you manage to freak out lots of kids with the horn! :-D

[tttuba]

so I had to include one of mine. We do Halloween big in this house. Could be a spirit Halloween store ad.

[keithcorcoran]

Glad to see someone else using their trucks for Halloween.

I appreciate everyone's feedback on the designs however, the Evil Queen made her final ruling and chose #4 today.

Had to try and beat the sundown but didn't do so well.

I guess this will be a good sort-of tutorial on lettering and distressing since I'll post progress pics and share my experience.

I thought about having a paint mask cut at the sign maker, then thought about having the whole thing cut in vinyl letters and just applying it.

Of course, neither of those options would give me practice lettering/striping my own truck. A skill I will probably never use unless I decide to paint some junk doors to hang in my garage or sell.

So here's the ghoulmobile as she will sit until I take down the Halloween decorations (I'm thinking around Thanksgiving.)

Look at those corporal stripe rust spots. Know anyone who needs a full set?



So I scaled the design to full size (about 60"x13") and printed it on a few pieces of 11x17 paper. Taped those together and placed it on the truck with some scotch tape.



Now here's where the magic happens.
Get yourself some of this....



It's wax free transfer paper. basically carbon paper in different colors. I used yellow. The white didn't work as well for some reason.

I used a copy paper sized piece since it was all I had in yellow and moved it around under the image as I drew over top of the print with a red ball point pen. If you have a steady hand with the brush there's no real need to be perfect here. It's really just a guide. Here's the result.



I figured using good enamel like the OneShot paint the stripers and sign guys use would be a waste since I'm going to be distressing this anyway. I grabbed a small $3 can of Rustoleum Flat White enamel.

By this point, the sun was down and I was working by streetlight but I HAD to get some paint on the truck.

I started from the left but quickly realized that since I'm a lefty, it wasn't a good idea being that I was resting on the truck for support and not using a striping stick or support (or whatever they call it)

Here's where I ended up after a few minutes before giving in to the lack of available light.



MORE TOMORROW!

[NEWFISHER]

Looks AWESOME!

Shhhhhhhh........I know someone who wants those

[keithcorcoran]

haha. you're a funny guy newfisher.
better hurry and grow that new leg. I'll take it as a down payment until you can grow the new arm to send me.

Here's the progress today.

It was unseasonably hot and I could barely touch the truck to letter it. Add to that, the damn paint was drying almost at the instant the brush touched the truck yet I persevered.

Meanwhile, the wife got half of the cemetery fence installed after trying to help paint some lettering and realizing detail painting isn't her thing as evidenced by the missing "G" in the small lettering.

Just need to letter the smaller letters, distress and add in the gray 2 tone to the top letters. Not necessarily in that order.

[NEWFISHER]

Now I'm on the fence as to which design fits your build. Oh wait, just a reflection of my screen. Nice prop!

[Yewhi]

I love it! My HOA would probably have a fit if I put that in my yard for the duration. Oh wait... Never mind... That would never fit in my postage stamp sized yard. LOL!

Looks like a great setup and I love the design you chose! We get into Halloween a bit as well. I usually try to incorporate the truck. We use a few projection effects mostly in the house but also on the truck. Here is the '55 with the singing pumpkins animation setup in the bed. As much as I love this truck it is great on Halloween. This year it will be driven by the grim reaper....

[panelrodder81]

I would have gone with design #1 myself however your process for transferring the design to the truck was my favorite part! I've wondered how this was done for hand painted art and I now am convinced that I will try my hand at it.

Thanks for the info and inspiration!

-Panelrodder

[Dan in Pasadena]

Keith,

It's looking good!

How did you develop the 4 designs in the first place? A software program, I assume? Then you printed it out on 11x17 paper, taped them together?

So if I understand correctly, after that you trace the design onto the tracing paper?? Then the tracing paper is taped to the truck and rubbed?? onto the paint? Have I got this correct?

[keithcorcoran]

Dan,
I used a program called Adobe Illustrator which I use in my profession as a graphic designer.

I used various fonts and then warped them to fit the shape I wanted based on height and width measurements of the truck's side panel.

Once that was complete I printed the design onto multiple sheets of 11x17 (total of 5 I believe) using the software's 'tile larger pages' option. Not all softare has this but Acrobat PDF definitely does.

The pieces are taped together to form the large image which is placed and taped onto the truck.

Then, a piece of wax-free transfer paper is placed between the printout and the truck. Drawing directly onto the print transfers the design, via the transfer paper, to the truck.

Remove the printout, grab a good brush (something I don't have), some enamel, and have at it.

I went hunting for a square/chisel striping/lettering brush locally here in Cleveland area and had NO luck.

There are quite a few hand lettering videos on youtube I found today which I wanted to try for the block lettering using the brush I mentioned but I'm just going to knock it out tomorrow with a short square brush I have and be done with it.

it's all geting sanded off by end of the year anyway.

k.

Originally Posted by Dan in Pasadena

Keith,

It's looking good!

How did you develop the 4 designs in the first place? A software program, I assume? Then you printed it out on 11x17 paper, taped them together?

So if I understand correctly, after that you trace the design onto the tracing paper?? Then the tracing paper is taped to the truck and rubbed?? onto the paint? Have I got this correct?

[speesh]

"forgot to mention.. this will probably all get sanded off by the end of the year when I dig into the body work."
DIG into the BODY work.........muahahaha!!!!!!!
I think you should leave this on there permanently, in the spirit of Halloween all year round! It looks great.

[keithcorcoran]

mostly finished the lettering yesterday.
I wasn't able to find a proper flat edge lettering quill locally so I found a similar brush that worked "ok".

Went in and sanded some of it to distress/age it. I need to do a little more along the top or just might leave it like this. Have a bunch more props to build.

Since the truck didn't have a battery I wired up a spare pair of headlights to use low voltage 4w landscape lights as well as the marker lights on top of the fenders. They're wired to come on with all the other landscape lighting.. I'll have to get a night pic..

looks creepy.. lights on and dimly lit.

here's the latest lettering.



k

[NEWFISHER]

Props to you, looks awsome

[keithcorcoran]

Figured I'd post results now that i got a chance to breathe for a minute and take some photos. The ghouls were made from PVC and wrapped in fabric dipped in latex house paint. The girls are sporting custom latex masks I made last year.

[Yewhi]

That is just plain, freakin' awesome! I love the ghouls. How did you make those? Obviously PVC, but how did you make the joints and do the finish work? They look great and very creative!

Love it!

[Highsider]

Genius.
Thanks for sharing the "final" layout.

[DransportGarage]

That is really whacked out! Love it!