Totally Fab

This week we learned how to use the newest tool in our shop: the vinyl cutter.

My immediate reaction was to start using this tool to create stickers, or stencils.

I turned to my sketchbook for inspiration. Recently I saw a particularly ugly picture of our commander and chief, Donald Trump, and became fascinated with the shape of his face. From the side profile view it might be the oddest shaped face I have ever seen, geometrically speaking.

Goals

• Capture the shape of Trump’s face and make it recognizable.
• Create a vinyl cut that can be used as a stencil or sticker.
• Put it places.

Turns out Trump hates when news outlets use pictures that don’t display his looks well. Here is a quote from a New Yorker article

“In the presence of television executives and anchors, Trump whined about everything from NBC News reporter Katy Tur’s coverage of him to a photograph the news network has used that shows him with a double chin. Why didn’t they use “nicer” pictures?”

Sketching

I even did some quick water paintings on my new Buddha Board

He reminds me of a super villain from a cartoon.

And then I jumped into to illustrator and traced my sketch.

I know in this time talking about Trump is usually a very sensitive topic, and I am in no way advocating for or against his policies with this. I wanted to keep the illustration simple, so the focus was on the shape of his head.

His face dominates the media. He might be the most talked about person in the history of the world, other than Jesus. For that reason his face is extremely recognizable. I used the vinyl cutter to make some cuts of his face to put places, or even to use as a stencil.

Printing

I used the RolandCutStudio plugin for illustrator. I ran into problems trying to connect my computer to the printer itself.

A few restarts of my computer and illustrator fixed that problem.

My first print was in gold vinyl.

The print was successful, but the curve of his hair was cut off. I fixed the problem by making his hair a shape instead of just a line.

I also changed the color to red, I thought it was more… fitting.

Placing

Now, time to put these out in the real world.

This was on a dumpster. Thought provoking?

What I learned

• How to use the Vinyl Cutter and the Roland CutStudio plugin for illustrator.
• Trump has one of the oddest shaped faces of all time.
• People have a wide range of reactions when they see Trump’s face.
• Stickers are a nice way to make ideas come to life quickly

Although this project was very simple, I found it fascinating to see how people reacted to the image. Most laughed. The color of the vinyl also determines how the picture is interpreted. Red is powerful, bold, maybe even dangerous depending on who is looking at it. The one thing no one can deny is that the shape of Trump’s face is as recognizable as it is weird.