Thread: Tell me about patches

Okay, well, that was largely fruitless. In case anyone else is interested, I have gleaned some basic information (a lot of which is based on hearsay, so I don't know...) :

1) Fabric: Many punk rock patches are printed on canvas.

2) Glue: Largely unnecessary, at least as far as punk rock patches go. Since the punk scene is big on the whole DYI thing they tend to sew patches on themselves or safety pin them on.

3) Stencilling: Annoying/tedious and easy to screw up. However, yields excellent results if done well.

4) Silk screening: Takes a bit more money, time and trial and error than I am currently willing to contribute, but seems like it would really pay off in the long run if I wanted to make A LOT of patches.

5) Linoleum printing: Requires me to buy some carving (and other types of) tools, but seems like the best printing method to show the kind of expressive lines that I want.

6) Acrylic paint: Flakes off and washes out. Definitely a no-no.

7) Fabric paint: Much better than acrylic.

8) Glow-in-the-dark paint: A bitch to find.


If you have anything to contribute, IT'S NOT TOO LATE!!!

Save me before I go out and buy something I don't need.

Despite absolute lack of interest in this thread, I will continue posting in case anything I am learning will one day be of use to somebody else.


As I go to an art school, I get some priveleges in terms of resources and free materials accessible to me. I knew for a fact that one of the art classes did a stencil project, meaning that my school would have the materials I need.

I asked my art teacher for a sheet of acetate (I hope that's how it's spelled), and he delivered. Acetate is basically like that stuff teachers use for overhead projectors -- a glossy, clear sheet of plastic (or something closely resembling plastic, heh.)

After browsing some instructional webpages (http://www.melissaclifton.com/tutorial-stencila.html;
http://www.spraypaintstencils.com/st...tutorial1.html),
I decided I was ready to try out my first stencil. I did not want to do any original art yet, as I was wimpy and wanted to try out something 'easier' first.



I chose a photo of Johnny Depp as seen in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Little did I know, this test of the medium would take quite a few hours of my time.

Naturally, after figuring out all of the linework in Photoshop, being careful to avoid leaving any islands, I figured the worst of it was over, and headed over to a downtown art supply store to buy an exacto knife. However, the cutting-out part turned out to be quite a bit more tedious, especially considering that I hadn't handled a craft knife in years.

Finally, when I was done cutting out my stencil, I took it to school to do a test run with acrylic:



Although I have learned a lot from my first stencil, there are many things I would change if I were to give it another run. Looking at it practically makes me cringe, as all of my mistakes pop out at me.
However, it makes for a cool shadow puppet.

If there's any advice I would give at this point in time, it would be to make sure you are very careful when trying to draw parts of the stencil that are cropped out in the original photograph you are working from. I had to draw the top of Depp's head, and I think I miscalculated a bit, and my stencil looks a bit out of character. Of course, this does not apply if you are awesome and are making a stencil of your original art.

Also, no matter what paint you use, make sure it isn't too watery. In the photo of my stencil, there are some areas where the acrylic paint was clearly much too diluted (look at the right side of his face, where the pattern on his shirt runs into his cheek a bit... or vice versa, haha, I don't recall.)

Cheeeers

Most patches are merged into the kernel via script. You send your patch in an e-mail, properly-formatted and signed, and it gets merged in automatically.

Of course, it's not quite that simple. There are several layers of reviewers before it gets into the official kernel tree. And even when it does, it goes into Andrew Morton's unstable tree before merging into Linus' stable tree.