New to the process...

[Kupe]

Hello fellow dyers. I am new to the sport of disc golf as well as new to disc dyeing. Was hoping to get some good pointers from some of you pros out there with those incredible disc designs ive looked at.

My main questions i have as a disc dyeing noob is how one goes about doin multicolor graphics? Ive seen some threads that have small blurbs with pics that arent very well explained.

Another question is how to pick out good graphics to put on a disc or proper methods of taking the image i want and converting it to an acceptable stencil. Ive grabbed some images i want to use and when i try getting them to black and white they just dont look right, especially ones that are already black and white but need the colors inverted.

Another topic im interested in is about the shaving cream/soap method and acetone method of painting. What is this? and what are the differences in each method?

Also any other good tips and tricks that can help me do spectacular discs like you guys would be greatly appreciated. I am also on a limited budget so cant get fancy tools. Pretty much what i have to work with is the basics, a pc and printer, dye, exacto knife, contact paper, some discs, a pan, acetone, and 70% & 91% rubbing alcohol.

Thank you for your time and any responses that i get.:thmbup:

 

[ohtobediscing]

Boom! goes the prerube.

Welcome and hang in there, Kupe, and remember, they mean well.

 

[bilythekid]

^^^^^amazing

 

[Kupe]

First attempts...

Ok here are my first two attempts on dyeing my discs.

For the triforce i used a yellow blizzard champion Ape, the dye seemed to be a little on the green side, idk if it was from the disc itself being transparent yellow or if dye wasnt mixed well.

I was gonna try to marble it so the triforce had depth but since the dye was lookin a little green and see through i just left it as is.

Question on this one is was my dye not hot enough or did it need to sit even longer to come out a darker black? Also, any critiques on this disc?

Second disc is a red first run Discwing Quarter K that i put the thundercat symbol on, i heard the quarter ks dont take dye too well but this one did decent, main issue i had was that i accidentally threw out the negative part of the stencil i needed to keep so i dug it out of trash and unstuck itself and applied it which led to some spots to bleed. Which i wasnt too worried about cuz i inteded on tryin the marble technique.

The second pic of the disc is after i tried to marble it... i think i used too much dye on the shopping bags and maybe too much pressure as it didnt leave much of a design and just looks like a bad leak job. Any critiques on this one? And any tips on using the marble method?

 

[Rayne]

I'll answer what I can.

My main questions i have as a disc dyeing noob is how one goes about doin multicolor graphics? Ive seen some threads that have small blurbs with pics that arent very well explained.

There are a few methods here, but I'll start you off on the simplest. Let's assume you want to put black, dark blue, green, and yellow on a disc. You'd leave uncovered only the parts that were black first, then peel and dye the dark blue parts, then peel and dye the green, then yellow. The downside to this method is that you can only work in colors that won't 'overlap' each other; you can't dye red on top of dark blue and have the result be red and dark blue- the dark blue will turn purple.

Figuring out how to put opposing colors on a disc isn't hard after that, the tricky part is remasking so you don't cover anything you want uncovered.

Another question is how to pick out good graphics to put on a disc or proper methods of taking the image i want and converting it to an acceptable stencil. Ive grabbed some images i want to use and when i try getting them to black and white they just dont look right, especially ones that are already black and white but need the colors inverted.

Print out the image you want, then trace it with a Sharpie. Work on a glass table with a light placed on the floor.

Question on this one is was my dye not hot enough or did it need to sit even longer to come out a darker black? Also, any critiques on this disc?

Could be a lot of things. Could be that your dye isn't concentrated enough. Could be you didn't leave it on long enough. Could be you didn't have it hot enough. (I work at 150 degrees with Oracal 651- your mileage may vary.) Trial and error is the way to go here, and also probably iDye Poly.

The second pic of the disc is after i tried to marble it... i think i used too much dye on the shopping bags and maybe too much pressure as it didnt leave much of a design and just looks like a bad leak job. Any critiques on this one? And any tips on using the marble method?

Yeah, don't. The marble method is ridiculously overrated. You can make some cool looking patterns with it, but they're not very predictable, and there are usually better, simpler options for creating 'texture', if that's what your after. But, if it's just a cool background you're looking for, go for it.

 

[Kupe]

Thanks for the responses so far. I am using Idye poly and my temp was straight out of the tap at 140 degrees, on the thundercat one i did put it on the stove to heat up more. Have some more discs im gonna try out soon, just need designs and the time when girlfriend isnt home lol.

 

[NorthernDisc]

How exactly is marbleing overrated Rayne? It can be very predictable if you know what your doing, plenty of evidence to back that up. I did a shaving cream marble tutorial in the Marbleing thread. Should help clear things up. Never liked the plastic bag technique much, but it works too. To the point of making a stencil I use Gimp2 to make stencils and it works fine for anything you want to do really in terms of simple stencil design. Tracing with a sharpie would take way too long, I just use the cartoon filter in Gimp and it traces all the lines for me.

 

[Kupe]

I have gimp but have only used it once tryin to make a stencil. Can you use any image even a portrait picture of someone and use the cartoon filter to get a stencil? I havent played around with gimp to know its features and i didnt know there was a cartoon filter. Found a youtube vid for dying discs and he used gimp on a picture but didnt use the cartoon filter and seemed to not come out to great and when i tried it didnt really look like the picture i was tryin to do.

 

[NorthernDisc]

Its one of the artistic filters works on any image really. Just have to play around with the balances a bit to get it right.

 

[Kupe]

ok cool, thanks again.