(ex)Sgtrafman Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 Hi everyone I just wanted to share my thoughts and progress using the Cricut Explorer Air 2. I received my Cricut last Wednesday, my wife brought it for me for my 50th birthday (thank you Leanne). Now I'm a bit of a luddite when it comes to technology and I'm incredibly lazy I just want things to work with out any messing around but to my surprise the Cricut is very easy to use and I think the masks that you can make are as good as any commercially produced items. I started by looking for any additional software that you might need to use for designing and producing masks, the Cricut software is ok but almost every user I could find recommended using Adobe illustrator so I duly subscribed to Adobe (£19 pcm) down loaded the software and had a play. I started by producing a series of RAF roundels circa 1939 - 45, I found several references online that gave the size of each roundel type in inches so I found an online conversion tool and converted these measurement's to cm and drew them in illustrator to 1/48 scale. I then sent the image to the Cricut software and cut my first mask a Type A.1 roundel in 1/48 scale. I used some white vinyl which has proved to be very hard to remove because its too tacky and it lifted the paint. I had another go, this time creating a mask for a 56 in, 28 in, 21 in upper wing roundel again in 1/48 and sprayed that (see both roundels below) Not too bad I think I could be onto something here? I then decided to create some templates for RAF fonts circa 1939 - 45 again a search of the internet threw up some examples so using these a place to start I produced my own set of fonts again in illustrator.. ..for my next test I scaled my drawings to 1/32 and created some more masks this time using Frisk film as the masking medium and this time sprayed my 1/32 Fly Hurricane paint mule again applying a Type A.1 fuselage roundel and code letters.. I think with a little more practice the Cricut will prove its worth enabling me to produce any set of codes, markings, camouflage, wheel and canopy masks. I think the Cricut is a great bit of kit, not cheap (my wife paid £260 for mine) but I'm the kind of person that will spend a small fortune on after market masks so I think that for my it will cost effective in the long run plus its quite enjoyable researching and making the masking templates. Cheers all Iain 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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