The Norwegian Zaccaria Star Splash restoration project

[Etienne MacGyver]

  my bad, i did not read it totally, but thats because i think its ugly T-Molding..

Makes the cab look really "cheap"

I would keep the original on there then, or is it totally gone ?

Just my two cents..

[Arch]

Hm, I agree. It will look a bit cheap I think.
The original t-molding is totally destroyed. Partially torn off and painted over where it still remains.
I will go with black then.

[PaulSwan]

Nice project
Paul.

[Arch]

Thanks Paul,

In case you guys wonder about the recent silence, it is all underway, but in babysteps - and not very interesting ones. Yesterday, for instance, I spent hours reinstalling frigging Windows XP onto a laptop in order to make a portable scanning station that I can take with me into the basement where I keep the cab. And we all know you don't want to see pics of a tired guy installing XP on a laptop so...   

But the scanning bit is coming up soon. Time to plan my approach by re-reading Etiennes thread.

[Etienne MacGyver]

Great,

If you need help or tips, feel free to ask.

I have done a few succesfull scans & stitches, and Ully can help you too, he told me everything i know 

[Arch]

Finally got around to trying out my new scanner. Pretty happy with it. As a test I did a scan of the Star Splash CP. As I have an original one that I think I will keep as it is, but I've seen a couple of requests for a generic Zac panel here and I thought it might be a nice way to ease into the project, get a feel for the scanner, contribute to the community etc. So here's the image of the CP after manual stitching, colour adjustment and cleaning up. Now for the vectorizing. I am preparing to delve into Halftone Hell here. Hopefully I will come up with a neat trick for those circular halftone patterns.  

But to you guys with the similar cp. How do the colours look to you? It would be nice with some input to get it as correct as possible. I sometimes screw up colours as I am colour blind (don't tell my employer. )

[PaulSwan]

Nice job! On my universal I have this panel but it's the 1-button variation.
Heh, can't help too much on colour either - also colour blind.
Regards,
Paul.

[Etienne MacGyver]

Do you also like to have the vector template for the CP ?  

zacc mini cpo template.pdf



Oh, and here is my way of making halftones  

https://www.dragonslairfans.com/smfor/index.php?topic=3318.msg45363#msg45363

and

https://www.dragonslairfans.com/smfor/index.php?topic=3474.msg48275#msg48275

[Arch]

Sweet! Thanks a lot, Etienne.  If you happen to have the .ai layer of the button placement that would really be great!

I'm kind of anxious about the halftones in this particular piece. "Normal" halftones like the ones you describe in your threads are time consuming enough, but the halftones here are crazy. Here's a pic to show you what I'm up against.



I am no fan of Live Tracing, but I might end up autotracing these particular parts because I don't really see a consistent pattern.

[Belike]

The darker blue parts are purple on mine, but I think there are more colour versions from this one.

[Etienne MacGyver]

That pdf that i linked to has all you need  

You didnt opened yet in AI i guess

Anyway, the halfoning, or i can better say pattern is a b1tch!

It looks a bit like circles with a dot inside..

i did not ddraw every circle you see, but you get the idea i guess  

[Arch]

Right! Aaalmost done with the cp. What remains are some of the more intricate halftone patterns. To reproduce those manually will take forever, so instead I plan to do another really high resolution scan of the areas concerned, and to autotrace them in order to preserve the original pattern. Not that anyone would really care, but you know how it goes. Once you invest time in such things, you want it done proper. 

Here is a WIP. Another session to go, and it should be pretty much done.

[Etienne MacGyver]

Looking tight !

[Luigi]

Good to see that my gift will help others, too 

[Arch]

Luigi: indeed, hopefully somebody somewhere will need this. I'll try to finish it next week.

In the meantime:


Scanning the Star Splash side art using Etiennes patended technique. I do this in a shared basement, and I sure got some strange looks from the neighbours.