The Next Big Thing

I have been working behind my blog scene over the past week or more on the next big thing.... or project or whatever I want to call it this week.  So with some progress finally being made on the new idea I thought I should let everyone know where I am headed with this brainstorm that I came up with.   

  In the workshop all of the walls are painted white.  Looks nice and bright and clean but after a while it gets boring looking at blank white walls.  Sure the tools hanging on a few of the walls helps but I thought I would give my viewers of the videos that I shoot for the blog something a little more interesting to look at while I'm demonstrating how to make something.  So another new project was born. 

  As many of you have already seen on the blog I have shown various drawings and projects that involved my drawing of a 1912 Indian board track racer.  With this famous motorcycle in mind I thought I would put together a large graphic of the motorcycle to hang in the workshop.  So let's get into what I've but together so far. 

First I tracked down on my computer the original drawing that I had made and posted about on my very first post for the blog back in 2011.  I used this drawing to create a lighted Plexi-glass display which turned out very well and I still use to this day. 

Next I took the black and white drawing and added color and a shadow under the motorcycle.  This was added using some great drawing and photo editing software called Gimp.  Gimp by the way is free to download online and does many if not all of the things that Photoshop can do.  So why buy Photoshop?  The price is right that's for sure. 

Here's a photo of the north end of the workshop.  Notice the big bare blank white wall in the back?  This is just screaming for something to be put on it.  So this is where the project will be born and finally be hung in the shop.  

That's better!  Again I used Gimp to create the photo that you see here.  I was able to take the drawing and combine it with the original photo and then with a little shading and tweaking of the lighting in the image I was able to get this photo that gives me a very good idea as to how the finished project should look once I have it all put together and hung up to display.  Adds a bit more color to the shop so it will be a welcome addition to brighten things up just that much more. 

There are a couple of different ways that I have looked at making this project.  I thought originally that I could just trace the line drawing on the wall and then paint it similar to paint by number set that were being sold years ago. (Are they still being sold?)  I kind of shot this idea down because of the effort it would have taken just to try and trace the motorcycle on the wall.  Concrete block walls are far from smooth so it looks to be a bad idea from the start. 

 Then I thought I could make a fiberglass panel and then trace the motorcycle on to it to do the paining.  This would give me a smooth light weight surface and would be easier to paint laying down on the work table and light enough for me to hang on the wall.  The panel would be approximately three foot by six and a half foot in size and so it would have to be pretty light for something that large.  I have a mounting strip already built into the ceiling right against the wall so that is not a problem.  This is a possibility. 

 My brother asked me if I could get a full sized decal of the motorcycle made and then simply apply it to the panel. This would save me a lot of work in hand painting the image on this big piece but I am not so sure it will be at a price that is something that I could live with.  I will have to check this out as well. If I can get the decal at the right price this would be a very simple and fast project for the shop. I will do some research on this in the next coming days and then decide which way to go.  Either way I think it will be another interesting project.

  I will post all the details about how the panel for the display is made and all the step afterward to completion as usual.  So stay tuned while I fire up the shop once again for another interesting project.