I've seen a few different digital camouflage dye jobs recently, including the awesome Boston Cannons one done by Sebastian Olsen last week. It motivated me to post the pictures I had of a dye job I began in June of last year. This is my take on the Digi-Camo dye.
I decided to model my camo off of some Washington Capitals jerseys we had made last season. I liked the red, and decided to do three different shades. To begin, I dyed my head a base red. I kept it lighter than usual, hoping to make it stand apart from the darker shades. I went ahead and dyed it right in the pot, keeping the top and bottom relatively even by switching halfway through and keeping it moving to avoid lines.
After I had rinsed the head, I went through and put down my first round of stickers. Using tweezers to minimize contact with the sticker adhesive, I tried to keep the lines parallel by keeping the cuts going in the same direction. Try not to have a diagonal side next to a straight side, if that makes any sense. I used smaller pieces on the sidewalls, making less for me to trim, and leaving for a clean outcome. I also made sure to leave space between the stickers for the later shades of red.
I dyed the head a bit darker once my stickers were all on. I tried to go to a true red this time. I wanted a good middle color that would stand apart from the lighter red and the darker red that would be the final color. I kept it in there for a while until it looked right, and pulled it. I rinsed the head and held it up to my jersey to see if it would match the color on the jersey. It was close enough, but not exact.
For the final color, I peeled off most of the stickers. I planned on both the first red (that had been under the stickers) and the darker red changing equally in the final dye so that they would still look different without having to leave on the first stickers. I placed a new batch of stickers randomly around the head, trying to cover up various parts of the other shapes. I wanted to cover an equal amount of the light red and the middle red, while still leaving enough of the head to get the final darker red. I made sure to trim all stickers the hung over edges, and tried to avoid placing stickers over drastic curves to ensure that all the shapes came out clean and crisp. This took a long time to do since I was covering the whole head, but in the end I think it was worth it.
The last color was applied after all stickers had been placed. I dyed it dark enough to stand out from the first two, keeping it in long enough to get a blood-red shade. I rinsed it off and removed all the stickers. While the lightest shade of red definitely stands out, the middle and darker reds could be a bit more different. Overall, the pattern came out great, and looks awesome in the sunshine.
To finish it up, I used some synthetic leathers from Stringer's Shack to whip up a triple Turtle. It's the same as my usual Turtle Shell pockets, but with an extra row of loops. These "leathers" are great for all weather conditions, and really minimize the stretching that you'd normally deal with otherwise. You may also notice the leather screws at the top. This is a Stringer's Shack invention that makes your traditional pockets transferable into other heads. If your head breaks, just unstring the sidewalls and untie all the knots and your pocket will transfer easily to a similar head. I'd try to use the same head that you took it out of though, since the shapes of heads will affect how the pocket throws. A big thank you goes out to Stringer's Shack for the awesome gear (and sorry it took so long!)
So you've now seen my game stick for this season. I put the head on a Maverick Wonderboy equipped with one of my custom rubber butt ends. Next up I'll be getting after some Warrior Emperor heads, so keep it locked on LPG and hopefully it won't take me 9 months to finish the next one. Until then, keep on dyeing. Oh yeah, and GO CAPS!