Never: Playfield Screen Print

Watch the playfield come alive!

The playfield is printed! It's been such a huge milestone that it feels like a real sense of achievement. I'm delighted with the results, surprised I feel like I achieved what I set out to do with the style. The references to traditional pinball and links to my own style and imagination for how I envisaged the visual style.

Registration is designed to be fairly loose. I'm almost welcoming slightly off register for that true pinball look

It's hard to go back and imagine what I really originally pictured the artwork to look like when conceiving this project a few years ago, but it captures so much little ideas from over my research and most important is fun. Infact it was incredibly fun to produce the artwork and print it, something I had hoped for but just naturally worked out in the end.

Making sure the flood is adequate for printing - Thanks to Arthur Buxton for the assistance!

I've always loved the overlay of colours when screen printing - watching the process is like magic when new colours start to appear. 

Playfield detail unfolding colour by colour

Anyway I'm glad I stuck with the direction and like finishing everything, now it's onto the next stage and the challenges that next phase of assembly throw up.

First I need to decide if I clear coat the surface for protection. I have three options:

1. No clear coat I think the art will wear away and chip very fast if unprotected. The wear when interesting may look incredibly rubbish! I want the game to have some lifespan, and if it wears away quicker, that is going to seriously shorten.
2. Complete clear coat - I've almost already thrown out the idea of no clear coat. The fastest and easiest way would be for an all over clear coat.
3. Sections of clear coat is really interesting - the idea that some areas are protects and some are open to the destruction is a pretty exciting concept. It could be traces of a previous game which are set and recorded into the playfield with the clear coat.

The application is always going to be a problem,- generally the work areas I have access to where this can cure are dusty uncontrolled environments, so I'm not expecting a perfect coating.

As don't have a budget for getting done professionally what are my options; brush or spray can? I think best option would do some test coats on scrap to find a suitable spray can.