Large wooden or polystyrene letters

James976

Member
Hello,

I have thought it would be quite good to get some custom letters (for photographs) standing 1000m (h) X 300m (d) for the new full time prospectus at the college I work for. I have found a couple of placed that do polystyrene letters which are more costly than I originally thought they might be. I have looked at Graham Sweet and Eccleston. Does anybody know where I might be able to get some cut out of MDF or any other polystyrene companies? If anyone knows of anybody please let me know.

Thanks.
 
Do you have a product design department? They should have the tools to do something like this.
 
do it digitally, with a 3d program.

save time money and an effing huge transport problem. How do you kern something that big!
 
Romack said:
do it digitally, with a 3d program.

save time money and an effing huge transport problem. How do you kern something that big!

It would likely be cheaper in the long run to do the wood/polystyrene models if you want to 'reuse' them. Each new image would need to be set up and unless the camera etc has hdri options that means manually lighting the scene/letters too. Then they would need rendering after. you'd realistically be looking at half a day per scene, versus 10-20mins setting up for a photo.

You might be able to do a cheaper version using photoshop's 3d bits but that's not very good in my opinion.

And Romack, I think the sizes might be wrong :p
 
Jesus 100m? Get your sizing sorted!!
Seriously there's no excuse for getting m confused with mm or cm these days.

(Speaking as the son of a joiner)
 
HA!! :clap: Well spotted this is meant to be MM....

I wouldn't really venture into using 3D software as some of my ideas have students holding them, walking around them and generally just trying out different methods.
 
Greg said:
I'm guessing that's supposed to be 1000mm x 300mm? :)

I figured that was more likely but thought I'd have some fun, I'm always being moaned at for the top button being done up :up:

Jimlad said:
Jesus 100m? Get your sizing sorted!!
Seriously there's no excuse for getting m confused with mm or cm these days.

(Speaking as the son of a joiner)

Assuming you're on about Greg's measures - 1000mm=100cm=1m so where'd the 100m's come from?
 
Try this company, POLYSTYRENE LETTERS they make 3D letters out of Polystyrene.

MDF letters in 3D would be made as a builtup but they would be rather heavy. You could have polystyrene letters with a face and back laminated with MDF and then sealed and painted.
 
Hi Craig, a local art shop by me sells 3D letters made out of paper. The paper is stretched over a wireframe and they are only a few quid. I think they are intended for people to decorate themselves but Im sure you could find something similar on the net or in your own local art shop.

As a cheaper alternative you could do what was mentioned above and render them in 3D yourself. Even if u need your students to hold them etc you could give them a generic box to hold then photoshop in the letters afterwards.
 
Jimlad said:
Oops, my bad. I think my brain was on Tilt last night!


Get your sizing sorted!!!! :p


Craig, anyone with a routing bench can do these for you, beware though MDF will be very heavy. Is it for a single day shoot? You could hand cut them in 5mm thick foamboard. It wont last as long as MDF but would be a similar cost for materials, you can hand cut your self, so would save the routing cost, which could be as much as £40 per letter at a guess. Only 5mm thick though so would only work as head on shots. Not as 3D as the POLYSTYRENE LETTERS post above.

or...

just get the students to make the letter themselves like these ladies....

6a00e5506da99788330115714f70b4970b-800wi


from here
 
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