ROLAND CUT STUDIO FOR AIRBRUSHING

by Don Johnson

This is the start of a series of articles that will cover using a vinyl cutter for designs in your airbrush projects. I will be using Roland Cut Studio in all the articles; Cut Studio comes free with all Roland Cutters no matter how big or small.

 

In this first article I will show you how to cut, paint a simple spider design. The design is available in the DESIGNS YOU CAN PRINT OFF on the forum. The spider actually has a double cut line (double lines out lining the spider) be for this article we’ll be just using one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s our spider in Photoshop I’m showing you so you understand any line drawing would work. You can draw your design on paper, scan it and bring it into Photoshop or any image editor and save it as a jpg. Use a WACOM table to draw your design if you like the possibilities are endless. You can you photo’s also but that’s the subject for another article. Save your image to a folder on your hard drive.

 

 

 

 

Open Cut Studio and than click on FILE in the upper left corner, click on IMPORT. Navigate to the folder on your computer with the image you want to use and select it. Click OK and your image will be imported into Cut Studio. The image must be a jpg file format to make it easy.

 

 

 

 

Your image is now in Cut Studio but not the correct size so we’ll resize it. Click on Properties in the upper right hand corner.

 

 

 

The Properties box appears where you set the size you want the image to be. Be sure that KEEP ASPECT is click to on to resize the image correctly. Input the correct size and click OK.

Our image is now the correct size; you can highlight the image by clicking on it and drag it any where you want on your cutting surface (the white surface in Cut Studio). Now to prepare the image to send to the cutter for cutting click on OBJECT link than click on the Image Outline link.

 

 

 

 

The Image Outline box now appears; from here you can set your image density. I set mine to just below the high setting.

 

 

With your image density set click on the EXTRACT CONTOUR LINES button and your computer will process the image. When the image has been rendered click on the OK button.

 

 

 

 

 

Now our image is back in Cut Studio ready to be sent to the cutter to be cut. Turn your cutter on if it isn’t on at this point.

 

 

 

 

 

Now click on CUTTING a box will appear from which the printer, cutter you want to use can be selected; select your cutter and click on OK.

Cut Studio sends the info to your cutter and the cutting process begins.

Ok out in the shop here we have our spider all cut and ready to be weeded which I do with a hobby knife. Good looking spider if I do say so myself.

 

With our spider exposed in the paint mask apply transfer tape over the vinyl.

Flip the vinyl over and carefully pull the backing off.

 

 

Position your design on your painting surface; I'm going to put the spider onm the fore head of a skull I had laying aound. With the vinyl in place remove the transfer tape now exposing the design ready to be airbrushed.

 

 

 

 

Now it's time to have fun; airbrush your colors in add pull the vinyl off and add a drop shadow and it's a done deal. Beginning to end this is pretty simple stuff and can save you a huge amount of time over hand cutting a design.

Copyrights :Airhead Airbrush.Com , Inc. Reserved No part of this tutorial may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Airhead Airbrush. Com , Inc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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