Cups & Glasses

Hi

Been home for a few weeks now and have been rather busy designing and etching for people.

I did mention a while ago that you may tend to fall into one type of etching and even if it was not your plan to stick solely to that way of doing it then that type seems to take over as it is either what you find you are good at or more than likely it's what people want you to make for them. Well at the moment I seem to have fallen into the glass etching and cup etching, I am used to doing large pieces and was wanting to develop the coloured pieces of which I am having limited success but it seems that people like my cups and glasses.

So in the hope of this developing a little more than just for friends I have a bought in a little stock from an outlet I found, just a couple of dozen pint glasses which etch nicely and 10 ounce cups which I can buy inexpensively anywhere, along with packaging boxes.

I also took the liberty of buying a few hundred business cards, who knows it may drum up some business.

The pint pots have been mostly for an athletics club in Bideford, Devon which is in the south west of the UK, and the club specialises in rowing.

I was asked to make the first for my boss's sons birthday as a present from his sister.

I made it in the normal way by downloading the club logo and vectoring it.

Unfortunately the lettering didn't come out so I used the circle writing tool and after a bit of fiddling got it approx with the nearest font I could find.

Just a word on fonts.

EBay is full of fonts for sale you can get disks with thousands on for a few pounds so try to find a reputable seller and buy a disk, I have had in the distant past, requests for an obscure font that I found looking through my disks; no idea how the person I was making the job new about it but luckily I was able to supply.

You may also have to download a font viewer as six thousand fonts in alphabetical format takes a bit of searching through.

Once the design was made and all of the writing I sent it to my cutting machine and weeded the resist.

I marked the two sides of the glass and applied the resist.

Once fully masked I gave it a light blasting to surface etch the glass.

I also had a second commission going at the same time and that was for a retirement gift for the ships Chief Officer so made the two together, with his I vectored my companies logo MPI.

Bit difficult to photograph.

This then created a little more interest.

Also for the Bideford Athletic club but for Geoff.

Which led onto a glass for Alan who requested his local Masons Lodge logo.

Which led onto a glass the the club President.

So I have been a little busy, did not stop there.

I was asked for a cup and glass for a friends daughter who is a champion swimmer so her club logo got the same treatment.

Again I had to search for a suitable font but found a close match after a trawl around.

The cup work has really taken off, and my next commission was a paying job which kind of backfired as I was given the wrong information to apply to the cups so am making new ones for free.

Unfortunately the dog is not a Labradoodle but a Cockerpoo which kind of ruined the surprise hence the new ones.

My new project is a kind of caricature theme of the people I work with, being avid readers of the VIZ comic a list was made of which person was most like their VIZ character and I have started making them there own cup.

Those of you who don't know VIZ, it can best best be described as a rather rude adult comic which is a big hit around the world not just in the UK.

Anyway I have made a start and some of them can't be put on these pages as they are rather rude.

They all have the VIZ logo saying who's cup it is and the character.

This is for the Second Mate who is a Londoner and a bit of a cock.

For the ETO who is a bit self opinionated and also a cock.

This for the Chief Engineer, who is rather portly, (he suggested this)

This for one of the 3rd Engineers, well it speaks for itself.

For the other 3rd and this defiantly speaks for itself.

The other ETO was a little difficult as his character didn't have any pictures that could be vectorised so with him being Scottish I decided on a BROONS character, a lot more sedate than the VIZ but a Scottish tradition.

So rather busy this time home and will start again tomorrow.

Paul