Brilliant idea or stupid thought: You decide

[jamstraz]

I am still moving at a snails pace on my models. Bases are clear acrylic box frames (8x10x1) which are/were going to be sprayed black. One base I'm doing a fiber optic star field, so that should like nice, but others...I kind of want like light up graphics. Was toying with maybe *gulp* painting them myself or cutting from transparent styrene different colors.

The brilliant idea is: transparencies! Those obsolete sheets of plastic. If I go to my local Fedex with some graphics on a black background I could get them printed out and then cut to size from 8.5x11 to 8x10. Slap it up there and problem solved. Light up with some LED strip on the edges, sheet of thin cardboard covered in foil to reflect.

Would this work or not so well?

 

[robn1]

Sure it's been done, some folks put sound cards in there too.

 

[jamstraz]

I'm just not sure how black they can get it to block out light. I need it more translucent then transparent I guess. Think Okudagrams

 

[Shryyyk]

So how this was done originally was with one/two layers of clear printed plastic (so they just printed the negative space pure black), and then used stage lighting gel acetates to make the colors - then backlit it.

I've got a couple done in this method and it works a lot better - you can easily buy the acetate from amazon etc, and then just print out the design on a regular printer using any kind of transparency film (OHP sheets would work well I'd think). You'll burn through a lot of black ink!

 

[robn1]

Most of the ones I've seen were masked and panted black with colored gels added from behind, or frosted for white. Trekworks on Youtube has done a few.

 

[jamstraz]

...this seems more involved than I thought it might be...

 

[star-art]

Pretty sure how they did it back in the day was by using film. There was a time when "service bureaus" in the graphics industry (blueprints, etc. -- "reprographics") could output art on clear film (Mylar, etc.). I used to make custom back-lit graphics this way. The black was completely opaque. To get color, you would add "gels" to the clear areas. You could also add a translucent layer (using translucent Mylar or "milk" Plexiglass) to diffuse the light.

With everything being digital these days I don't know if this process even exists anymore. You might check with a reprographics company to see what options they offer.

If you go with a transparency from a photo lab it's likely the "blacks" won't be completely opaque.

 

[jamstraz]

Eep