Welcome to Part 3C in our series…
In Part 3A, we learned to navigate through Illustrator and use various tools and commands to create the basic outline and size of templates for the car’s sides.
In Part 3B, we learned how to add bleed to our scaled template by offsetting the outline of the car, as well as creating the bleed needed when setting up window perf.
In Part 3C, we will use our knowledge gained from the previous entries in Part’s 2, 3A, & 3B to create the template/bleed for the backside of the car.
If this is starting to sound like a lot of work, don’t fret. If you’ve followed along with the previous blog entries in this series, Part 3C will feel like a review.
If you haven’t followed along and missed the earlier posts, you’ll probably start to panic and develop a reoccurring nightmare where you go to school in your underwear.
First let’s open up the photo we took of the rear side of the our car in Part 2 in Illustrator.
Using the steps we learned in Part 3A, we’re going to lock the photo layer, create a new layer to draw our template, and trace the rear window, body lines, and outline of the car.
Now that we’ve completed this step, adjust the size of our newly created template to make it the same height of the side template. (53 INCHES)
Right now you’re brain is probably yelling at you “WAIT! Didn’t we take special measurements for the back in Part 2? Why are we making the template the same height as the side?”
The reason we’re doing this is because the measurements we took for the back were gained from measuring every shape/curve of the back going from top to bottom. The reason we do this is because we want to know the overall length of material needed to wrap the back entirely. (More on this later)
Now that we have our template scaled correctly, we want to make a box the size of the measurements we took in Part 2. (76″ x 57″)
Once this box has been created, we want to group all of our lines used to create the back template. After we’ve grouped the template, use the Direct Selection tool (Black Arrow) and hold shift to allow you to select the measurement box and our template together.
We now want to use the ALIGN tool, this can be accessed one of two ways. The first way is by going to the top of your screen and navigate through WINDOW>ALIGN.
The second way is after you select the measurement box and the template at the same time, the Align tool command will appear at the top of the screen somewhere around the middle.
If you look closely, you’ll see there are multiple buttons containing little lines and a little box in various positions.
We want to start off by selecting the button with the single horizontal line going through the center of the box.
This is the HORIZONTAL ALIGN CENTER button, this aligns the center point on any 2+ objects selected horizontally so that every object is aligned to each others center point exactly.
After we’ve aligned the measurement box and the template together horizontally, we want to align them vertically so that the template is in the exact center of the measurement box.
We can align these two elements horizontally by using the VERTICAL ALIGN CENTER button, which looks like a single vertical line going through the center of the box.
This will align the center point of both objects vertically.
Now that we’ve aligned both the template and the measurement box to each others center point, lets add a 3 inch offset (like we learned in Part 3A) to the measurement box creating our bleed needed for the template.
You can go ahead and delete the first box since we wont need it anymore. After all these steps have been completed, this is how your template should look…
If you notice, the bleed box looks like it’s greater than 3 inches around outline of the car, this is because we offset the measurements we took for the “Actual Height” of the car. The car outlines let us know where the design elements are supposed to land, the bleed box tells us how big our printed file needs to be.
The reason we’ve mixed and matched measurements for the back is given it’s abundance of curves, we want to make sure the wrap fits correctly over our backside while covering it completely. We don’t want anything exposed or popping out of the back now.
After we’ve completed this step, we want to make a bleed guide for our back window. As I’ve mentioned in Part 2, the back window, much like the back side, has slightly larger dimensions that it does in our template given the fact that it’s usually at an angle.
Ungroup the lines used to create the back outline and select the window line.
With this piece selected, copy this object (⌘+C / Command + C) and paste it in front of the original window outline (⌘+ F / Command + F).
With this newly copy/pasted window outline still selected, go to the height/width boxes at the top of the screen and input the dimensions we gathered from Part 2 to adjust the outline to the window’s actual size. (52″ x 18″)
Now we want to add a 3 inch offset to this object. Next create a box the same dimensions of the window outline and place it in the same spot while turning it into a guide. (⌘+ 5 / Command + 5)
Once our rear window bleed box has been created, we can delete the excess window outlines used (leaving the original though), after this has been completed your template should look like this…
… BOOM! Now we have our template for the back side of the car!!
Seeing how some of you are following along and aren’t that familiar with Illustrator, or some of the steps discussed in Parts 2, 3A, & 3B. Go back and re-read and parts you might have difficulty with, or retrace any steps you might have forgotten over the weeks to complete your templates.
By the time you’ve finely tuned your templates for the sides and back of your car, it’ll be time for the final installment in the template creation stage of the wrap process… PART 3-D!!! CREATING TEMPLATES/BLEED FOR THE HOOD AND ROOF!!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been typing this blog post from inside a Starbucks and everyone who wants to sit down is giving me a dirty look because all my crap is spread out across 3 tables.
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