Gulliver wrote:To go for the "city transit map" look, you could try converting it to a vector image and smoothing the lines. I think you've got the colours right for that sort of thing... you're very good at making authentic looking things. Have you considered prop-making as a career?
Have you ever printed your money designs out? I imagine the paper would be hard to get right. Hand-made paper with a high linen or cotton content might give you a good result.
That does sound like a good idea. I don't use a vector graphics program normally, but I'm pretty sure I could find a way to run a conversion and smooth it out (I have all summer, after all). This is also a bit of a precursor to retrying a public transit map and a possible big road map of the Federation.
And thanks... actually, I haven't even thought about prop-making or anything art-related.
Mostly because of all the put-downs and the expectations of everyone for me to do science-related stuff. But part of it also is that I do a lot of paper stuff, but not much on the physical side.
As for printing money designs, my issue is that, if I were to do that, I wouldn't be satisfied with the result (as in, I would want to make an actual specimen of the banknote). Yeah, a good unbleached cotton paper, much like the Euro uses, would work wonders and print the designs well, but some of the design elements, such as fluorescing ink, intaglio, security threads, custom watermarks, holograms, and iridescent patches, would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve without going to a dedicated security printer, and that would cost a pretty penny. Not to mention one of my designs is for BIAPP (polymer plastic), and acquiring that/printing on it would be a nightmare.
Still, though, it's a dream. And it might happen one day.
(In any event, you look photogenic... want to appear on a banknote?)