Printed Acrylic Base for a Mimar Etihad Rail Model
Mimar, the model makers, came to Sun Studio with the base of an Etihad Rail presentation model: a single oval panel carrying the whole route across the country.
It was printed direct onto acrylic — the sea, the desert, the mountains and the line itself — with the artwork built up so the terrain can be felt as well as seen.
Project facts
- Client
- Mimar
- Material
- Acrylic
- Printing service
- Acrylic printing, embossed and raised ink
- Application
- Base panel for an Etihad Rail presentation model
- Content
- Satellite terrain of the UAE with the rail route traced across it
- Production
- Direct UV printing with the artwork built up in relief
The requirement
A presentation model is looked at closely and from directly above, which is the hardest way to view a printed surface. Every seam, every registration error and every flat patch of colour is visible from a metre away.
The base also had to survive the rest of the build. A model base is worked on for weeks after the print is finished — components glued to it, parts positioned and repositioned, hands and sleeves across it constantly.
What we did
The terrain was printed straight onto the acrylic rather than onto a sheet laminated to it. That keeps the surface continuous and puts the image in the panel, where nothing lifts at an edge while the model is being assembled.
Because each pass of UV ink cures instantly, further passes could be laid on top of the last. The coastline, the mountain ranges and the route were built up in relief, so the geography reads by touch as well as by eye — the same layering used for tactile signage, applied to a landscape.
The sea is the giveaway on a job like this. A large area of flat deep blue shows every banding artefact and every join, so it was printed as one continuous field rather than tiled across the panel.
Technical considerations
Acrylic prints well once it is clean, and cleanliness is the whole job on a panel this size: a single fingerprint or a trace of static-held dust under the ink shows permanently. The panel was degreased immediately before it went on the bed.
LED-UV curing is cold, which matters on acrylic. A heat-cured process risks stressing or distorting a large sheet, and a distorted model base is scrap.
The outcome
A model base that reads as landscape rather than as a printed sheet, with the route and the terrain standing up under the fingertips.