Another winter come and gone, and it's time for another shot at this thing.
Because there's such a clear dividing line between where the mylar was and wasn't, it's pretty apparent that I need to airbrush the road to get it a uniform color. The main holdup has been trying to figure out the best way to get the passengers to look right (since they're partly opaque and party clear), as well as figuring out how to make the really dirty art assets (such as the convertible on the lower left) look right without needing to hand paint anything.
After enough thumb-sucking and hand-wringing, I've decided that I can't make this thing look any worse than it already does. So, I need to pick a plan and just effing do it. And that plan is to spray gray over the entire road, and then use decals in all the different places for the assets.
I stitched together all of my playfield scans and took some time to fill in all the spots where paint is going to go.
NewRoad_(resized).jpg
For the passenger and cab inserts, I'm planning on silkscreening white in the shape of the asset as a whole, using StencilPro HighRes silk screens and Nazdar 5500 ink.
IMG_3101_(resized).JPG
I haven't fully decided on this yet. I may yet decide to give a try to stencil-cutting with my Silhouette Cameo, putting that stencil on transfer tape, transferring it to the playfield, and airbrushing white Createx on there. Since I've already ordered materials for both processes, I may as well just go with the one that works best for me without worrying about spending unneeded money. I've already spent it.
Once all the paint I need to apply is down, I'll put a layer of clear over the whole thing. I'll then put clear decals on top of the white ink left behind by the silk screen/stenciling. I want to do it this way, because clear decals with color printed on them laid on top of anything other than white will look like a mess, color-wise.
For the other art assets, such as the tow truck, the cop car, and all the other stuff, I'm deciding between printing them on white decals and doing that, or going the clear-on-white approach there as well. If I print on white decals, I have to make damn sure I cut right next to the black line, otherwise the white edges will show up. That seems like it could be obnoxious.
I know this all sounds like a huge to-do, but it's the best plan I have after hemming and hawing over it for a year. I've asked for advice around here, but pretty much all I get back is "Yep. That playfield is a mess. Good luck!" As I said, it's difficult for me to make it any worse, unless I'm doing it Hank's way.