I'm planning to do splatter painting and paint stamping with acrylic paint on the covers of my Acts of Evil ashcan books for Gen Con. And I've been thinking the paint ought to be protected somehow (Chris Engle <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=24332.msg237412#msg237412">suggests that acrylic paint takes a while to cure, and this matches my experience). I was thinking maybe bagging each book for sale in a comic book bag, but I'm worried the bags will either hinder the paint from curing fully, or the softening agents in the poly bag plastic might leach into the paint and alter its chemistry. Does anyone know acrylic paint well enough make a recommendation? The covers need to show on the shelf at the booth, so paper envelopes aren't an option.

Thanks,

Paul

It will stick to plastic just like it sticks to other paint. You might do best to stack them with the paint to the paper back of the one on top - or use a separate sheet between each piece. I wouldn't think that would lead to much sticking.

The good thing about paint is that once it is dry it should be pretty durable. I'm pretty sure I can use the clear faux finished I mentioned in the silk screening thread on book covers. That will make putting out paper backs a lot easier. I'll have to experiment.

Chris Engle

Hi Paul,

Chris' suggestion is a good one.  I'd take it one step further -- separate the books with waxed paper.

Cheers,
Darcy

If your book design supports the notion, and if your covers do not bulge or warp any, then perhaps you could attach "stand-offs" to the cover after the paint initially dries. My seminal idea was to use basic split rivets with the posts cut off, glued in the corners. But you could go with a lot of other options, to fit a particular aesthetic. The point is that the stand-offs allow you to not only stack the books without putting pressure on every square inch (whether horizontally on the floor while they dry or vertically on a shelf display while they're waiting to sell), but they also let air flow between each book cover, speeding curing.

Further, the stand-offs needn't be permanent. For instance, you could use little "blocks" of cardboard, held onto the cover with a little dab of something like post-it note adhesive on paper or polyurethane on laminate (easily peal off, but won't fall off). Perhaps a random distribution of them would work for you: avoid the existing paint splotches and provide another "texture" if the adhesive doesn't allow the cardboard to peel off perfectly. You could even, say, make cardboard slip-on corner pieces which would provide a gap but not actually attach to the cover surface (or attach only to the inner cover surface corners). Or, if you know they're gonna sit in a box until shelved or sold, you can just stack them with un-attached stand-offs between each, avoiding paint as much as possible.

Note that any stand-off need only be on the front or back cover, not front and back both (unless the aesthetic calls for it). The only possible caveat is that, with a random splattering of paint, it could be hard to find a spot to place a "random" one that isn't going to overlap a front or back cover splotch, and any consistent placement (i.e. corners) is BOUND to overlap at least some books' splotches--but, being permanent, one will never seen the "ruined" paint underneath them.

Anyhow, depending on aesthetics, storage needs, transport needs, and relative density of paint splotches, this technique might work for you.
David

Thanks.

I had mixed success with the experiments. I found that undiluted acrylic paint was best for the splatter painting. I'm achieving a nice fine splatter by loading a toothbrush with paint and scraping it with a popsicle stick, and getting very satisfying results from this fine splatter against the stencil I made.

Paint stamping the title and byline was a disaster, however. The paint gets squeezed out from the stamp and makes a blotchy mess. So I painstakingly made a stencil of the text and tried stencilling it. Also a disaster. I can't get the paint heavily enough through the stencil that it shows nicely against the black cardstock without also getting so much under the stencil that the result is also a blotchy mess.

So my next experiment is embossing powder...

Paul

When you use a stencil you are  moving in the direction of screen printing. One of the ways of doing screen printing is to attach a stencil to the screen (by tape or maybe better with spray adhesive). Then when the paint'ink is applied there is not room for it to squelch out like your finding. You will also have better luck using spray paint with stencils. The good wall graphetee artists in Bloomington IN do that - and quickly cos the police run them off!

Good luck with the embossing powder - I've never worked with it before.

Chris Engle