Spray painting artwork on monitor glass?

[nitz]

I was looking at a Pacman cab today in the wild, and it looks to me like the bezel art is actually painted on the other side of the glass. It looks nice. How the heck would you do this? Spray paint and stencils? Has anyone here ever attempted this?

Or am I mistaken and is it a printout sandwiched between 2 pieces of glass? Looks too good though, looks like it's actually on the glass.

[equlizer]

Its painted then a laminate overtop.  Those were printed using a machine using iduno what type of paint.

[nitz]

Yeah, that makes sense, I was thinking it looked too good to be stencils and paint. Still, I wonder if it would be possible to do something like this with stencils and spray paint as long as it was kept basic, ie you probably wouldn't be able to do fine details like small text.

[wweumina]

Silk-Screening on glass.  It takes more work depending on how many colors you need.  I've heard of print shops and even glass shops that will do it but it but it isn't cheap for a one-off custom job.

[TOK]

If you want to do this type of thing for your own cab, you can use plexi and paint made for plastics. The paint made for painting Lexan car bodies works great. I've done it a couple times, though only very simple patterns... I did black with a starfield on it for my Stargate bartop and also did stripes on plexi to match the art on my control panel to the art on the cabinet.

The starfield was very simple. I made random holes in a piece of cardboard and sprayed through it while rotating it around to different spots on the bezel. Laid the black down after that. The control panel is just varying thickness tape stripes.

[mytymaus007]

If you want to do this type of thing for your own cab, you can use plexi and paint made for plastics. The paint made for painting Lexan car bodies works great. I've done it a couple times, though only very simple patterns... I did black with a starfield on it for my Stargate bartop and also did stripes on plexi to match the art on my control panel to the art on the cabinet.

The starfield was very simple. I made random holes in a piece of cardboard and sprayed through it while rotating it around to different spots on the bezel. Laid the black down after that. The control panel is just varying thickness tape stripes.

Nice work TOK what did you use for your CPO on your bartop looks really shiny Nice work!

[TOK]

Nice work TOK what did you use for your CPO on your bartop looks really shiny Nice work!

Thanks. That is a repro overlay from arcadeshop.com. Came with a glossy finish like the original. I cut about 2 inches off each side of that is just unused space on the original machine.

I forgot to mention to the original poster that these paints go on the back of the plastic just like the silkscreen process on the glass. They spray on flat and the plexi actually gives them their shine.

[SavannahLion]

Just thought I'd mention this.

The responses here make it sound like applying art to glass is expensive and difficult.

There is glass paint readily available with different application options. So if glass is a must then it is possible to apply art. Unfortunately, the dominate clientale tends to be cottage art so the paint selection tends to cater them. Admitedly, you can't beat silk screening unless you're a pro artist or have access to some decent templates.

Quite honestly, I would opt for a "plastic"-type piece. The RC community is massive and I'm sure the color selection and application technique is broader and better documented due to this.

I'm just blabbering. I wanted the OP to know his/her options.

[nitz]

If you want to do this type of thing for your own cab, you can use plexi and paint made for plastics. The paint made for painting Lexan car bodies works great. I've done it a couple times, though only very simple patterns... I did black with a starfield on it for my Stargate bartop and also did stripes on plexi to match the art on my control panel to the art on the cabinet.

The starfield was very simple. I made random holes in a piece of cardboard and sprayed through it while rotating it around to different spots on the bezel. Laid the black down after that. The control panel is just varying thickness tape stripes.

That looks quite nice, thanks for posting it. I think something like that looks cooler than a sticker or a printed underlay as you get a nice sheen and a professional look.

Silk-Screening on glass.  It takes more work depending on how many colors you need.  I've heard of print shops and even glass shops that will do it but it but it isn't cheap for a one-off custom job.

Silk screen on glass would be awesome, but yeah, probably way more money than I would want to spend on that aspect of a cab.

I wanted the OP to know his/her options.

Thanks for the input. And it's "his"

[yotsuya]

Silk screen on glass would be awesome, but yeah, probably way more money than I would want to spend on that aspect of a cab.

I have a friend that has a silk-screening business and I mentioned this post to him. We're going to experiement with screening onto plexi.