Like many of us pinball machine owners, I'm sure, my TAF's apron has some issues. Namely, someone in it's checkered past tried to clean the apron with something they shouldn't have and some of the chain links near the shooter lane suffered. Also, it had some sort of tax/license plate screwed into the middle area where the main TAF logo is either while it lived in Belgium or when it was brought back home. Either way, the artwork needs to be redone.

I've seen the apron decal kits and while they look all fine and dandy, once installed, you know they're stickers. Personally, I wanted to do something different. I set out to recreate the artwork, from scratch, myself, to either have stencils made so the artwork can be painted directly on the apron, or have waterslide decals made for it.

Well, after many, many hours recreating everything(thankfully I already had the vines/chains part done from when I did my custom instruction cards) and getting the PMS spot colors right on, I finished the complete apron artwork, text and all. I'm calling it a 99% accurate reproduction because while my scans were huge and I double and triple checked placements and alignments, nobody's perfect. But in my own objective opinion, these are pretty damn good. I then printed each of the pieces of artwork out on our "big" printer at work(one that we use for high end proofing as it's calibrated to like 99.99% color accuracy) and took it home to mock up what it'd look like when it either gets painted or I have the decals made.

That's when it hit me. Why stop at replacement? Why not do what B/W didn't, or perhaps couldn't, do back then? Full color! Sooooo, with very little tweaking, some simple color matching, and some extra details added, I give to you what my TAF apron WILL look like when I get done with it. Again, this is just the mockup, but it's pretty spot on to how the finished product will be.

The only changes I forgot to make that are pictured here are the lightning bolt color for the main logo is now the correct spot color(it's too light in this picture), and the TAF logo on my custom card on the right will be replaced with the TAF logo from the center(with all the extra fancy do-dads in the "feet") for continuity. But that's it.

(FYI, the green vines are matched to the green vines from the speaker panel and how they look on the return lanes when backlit)

So, whaddaya y'all think?

IMG_6911.JPG

I haven't posted the ones with the green vines, but I did post these a while ago:

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/my-custom-taf-apron-cards

The first couple sets, the black looks light, but I haven't heard any complaints yet. Let me know if you have any issues with them. I can always fix 'em!

Thanks for all the kind words, everybody. Once I figure out how I'm going to get these graphics applied directly to the apron in a way that looks as factory as possible, I'll see about a way to "help" those that'd want to do it to their aprons as well. I have no idea what form that will take since, as much as I'd like to help out as many as possible, I want to avoid any copyright issues.

But, I ain't doin' anything until I get the process figured out 100% and repeatable. I've got a great lead on some super high quality, highly durable waterslide decals that I'm thinking about using. I just need to call the company to get some quotes on prices and turnaround time. It's a trademarked process they say is meant for outdoor use and is as durable as if it were painted on. I'd imagine after you clear coat over it, you'd never have anything to worry about.

I'll keep this thread updated with my progress as I go.

Durzel,

Sorry about that. I've been somewhat MIA from Pinside over these past few years, only checking in on a few threads here and there. I honestly don't remember seeing your PM, and I apologize for not responding. I may have accidentally clicked it without actually reading it, making it show up as read, even though I never actually read it.

With that said, though, I probably wouldn't have shared the vector files for it for a couple of reasons:

1) I spent tens of hours recreating that artwork from multiple scans and pictures to get it as exact as possible. I am a huge stickler for detail and for me, when it comes to doing graphics for this kind of thing, if it's not perfect, it's wrong. I want to do everything I can to make sure that it's right to avoid any kind of future "design drift", as I call it. It's something akin to genetic drift in cloning where you're making a copy of a copy of a copy, etc. and little errors get introduced in each successive generation and the end result is noticeably different when compared to the original and it looks like garbage. The "design drift" would happen when my files get out and about to everyone to print as they please and for those that don't have the proper software for vector files, or proper high quality printers, start doing prints of screenshots or JPGs and the resolution is poo compared to printed vector files. Then, someone who is good at vector art decides to use one of those screenshots and recreate the art from that. Well, that screenshot or lower quality JPG has extra pixels here and there where they shouldn't be and next thing you know, contours are off, apexes are off, colors are off, and who know what else. This is especially true for the lazy guys out there that just scan something and use a vector tracing program. Those things are pure garbage, even the one in Illustrator isn't as good as properly making a vector art file from scratch. So, in closing my first reason, I won't share them in order to protect not only the amount of work I put into them, but the quality therein. Especially since there are plenty of people out there who would have no problem just blatantly stealing them and selling prints or versions of my artwork without my consent, rendering all that time I spent on them as useless. There are plenty of "graphic artists" out there who have no actual creativity or ability and just steal artwork to make as much money as they can off it before they get caught.

2) At the time this thread was more active, I had already sent the artwork for both the original factory versions(TAF and TAFG) and my full color version to merfeldma and his team when they were ramping up to do the TAF apron remakes. There was a thread dedicated to just that apron remake and I posted in there a number of times about them using my artwork for it and all kinds of other stuff. Sadly, it looks like that apron remake will now never happen for whatever reasons. I am completely open to taking on a sort of restoration service for TAF aprons and offering a full color version as well, but I'd have to talk to Rick at PPS as he's the license holder for all things B/W. I imagine it could done two ways for different budgets: One being where it's just a full vinyl printed wrap that just covers up your existing apron art(no painting required), and the other where it's a full strip of your existing apron art/paint followed by new powdercoating then with new waterslide decals applied for the artwork of your choice, then clearcoated. The only issue might be with the TAFG. I'd need to see one in person to get the best idea of what that gold looks like to be able to match it accurately.

Hopefully you guys understand my reasoning behind all this. It's a delicate issue to be able to protect my work, but the other side of it that's also tough is the licensing of said work for any kind of restoration service. There are many hoops to jump through with starting something like that and honestly, I'd have no idea how much each version would cost and therefore what to charge for the service. Obviously the vinyl wrap would be super easy, quick, and reversible. But the full powdercoat, decaling, and clearing would be may more involved and much more costly. I'd want to do it on my game's apron first for proof of concept, of course. No licensing required for that.