The Brief
As another reference from Ace Wraps, Mr. A came to me wanting a highly technical wrap done.
He wanted his Yamaha R1 wrapped.
The Design
He wanted the design to look the exact same as this high-end MotoGP example:
For the most part, the inky line design flows seamlessly with the contours of the bike.
The ink strokes were obviously placed with intention.
So to achieve this I knew I’d have to map the illustration onto the fairings perfectly.
I also didn’t want the ink strokes to appear as stretched, or to have the wrap installer need to heat-stretch the vinyl to fit it properly.
There was no room for an expensive re-print if there was a misalignment…
(So I did something I would virtually never do for a print job unless truly necessary.)
After speaking with Mr. A to voice my concerns…
I decided to map the design onto a 3D UV.
The fuel tank geometry in this example was flattened perfectly:
I quickly sourced a stock ‘rock pattern’ vector for the initial draft.
It was as close as I could find to the original supplied artwork.
I did this as I wanted to save time by avoiding having to draw the pattern by hand.
But it quickly became apparent that a full hand-drawn approach would be needed after all.
Along with the fairing parts:
This would ensure that the design sat exactly where it needed to, without any stretching.
And I’d be able to adjust the design based on how it looked in the 3D viewport.
Printing first to find out was not an option.
The Proofs
I produced a first draft but still, the inky design needed to be improved:
The Final
I was working this job by the hour.
And though I had originally agreed a fair quote estimate with Mr. A, he got cold feet.
It’s sad because this would’ve been a beautiful end product had it been completed.