CDR Painting
By Matthew Toledo - 8/9/2005
When it comes to playing in a band, there are two major financial hurdles. The first hurdle is purchasing all your instruments. It doesn't matter if you're an all-acoustic band, or have stacks of amplifiers, acquiring your instrument takes a chunk out of your savings or your credit, depending on your situation. Painters paint paintings, writers write books, musicians eventually record a CD. This brings us to the second most expensive item a musician will encounter: CD replication.
When it comes to making a good impression with booking agents and fans, nothing can compete with a professionally recorded and replicated CD in a jewel case with full color art work. Unless you are an ace soundman and own your own recording equipment, there isn't much you can do about getting around the cost of recording a CD. However, there is a novel technique you can use to make a CD that you burned look more professional than a simple CDR. Plus, the novelty of the presentation might make your disk stand out against the others. All it takes is an origami CD case, some CDR's of your music, and a can or two of spray paint.
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The details on how to make an origami CD case out of paper can be found in a previous AMN article. I suggest printing artwork on the paper that you will use to make the origami case. If your home printer isn't the best, you opt for black and white prints at kinko's for around 8 cents a piece. If you opt for color copies at Kinko's, you're looking at around $0.89 per page. Kinko's even has a computer program that you can download that will let you print your art at the local Kinko's on Court Street. You can then pick up your work when you're in town. You just need a debit or credit card and a connection to the internet.
Now that you have your artwork ready, a simple can of spray paint can be used to transform your plain-looking CDR into a professional looking demo CD. You want to buy a can of paint that is specifically designed to bond with plastic. I went to the local Wall-Mart and purchased several cans of paint for the purposes of writing this article. I purchased a can of white primer, red glossy paint, red matte paint, silver metallic paint, and gold metallic paint.
Start with blank CDR's. Don't burn your music to the CDR to start off with. There is a slight chance that spray paint could get on the wrong side of the CDR, thus making it unreadable. The last thing you want to do is sell or give someone a CDR that is broken.
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Your results will varry based on the quality of your paint. Go for the best paint: Krylon. It will only cost you about $4.00 a can. A can of paint will last you for at least 100 CDR's or more.
Kyrlon makes a "Fusion" paint that supposedly was formulated to fuse to plastics. However, if you look at other cans of paint, you'll notice a lot of them say they are designed for wood, metal, and plastic. There is one Krylon paint that looks very cool and costs a bit more. Krylon's Fusion Mystic Prism will change colors depending on the angle of the light hitting it. It's pretty trippy. All you jam bands can thank me later.
DO NOT use fleck paints that give a textured, rock like finish to stuff. The flecks of paint have a good chance of coming off in a CD player. They may also make the CDR too thick to fit in some front-loading car stereo's.
There is a complete photo journal of my spray painting adventure locate on the AMN.
Step 1:
Find is a flat surface. It is IMPERATIVE that the CDR's lay data-side-down on a very flat surface. Spray paint has a knack of getting into any crack or crevice, so if your CD is not laying perfectly flat, paint will get on the data-side of the CD. That will make your CD unreadable. You could try using a piece of flat cardboard. Make sure you are in a well ventilated area, however strong winds outside will make it hard to paint the CDR and it will blow debris onto your work. Try doing this outside on a day that isn't so windy. If you have a garage, try that, but be warned… unless you want paint all over your garage floor, make sure you protect a large area of the garage floor with a tarp. Lay your flat piece of cardboard on top of the tarp.
Step 2:
Place your CD's on the flat surface. Leave some space on either side of each CDR. This will make it easier for you to paint the CDR without making uneven splotches or paint drips.
Step 3:
You do not need to prime your CDR. However, I've gotten better looking results if you first get a can of primer that comes reasonably close to the final color. Use white primer for light colors, pastels and metalics. Use gray primer for darker colors.
Step 4:
Make sure you shake the can of paint for a good couple of minutes before you start painting; otherwise the paint will come out uneven and make the CDR's look splotchy. Start spraying the can off to the side of any of the CDR's. Make sure the can is about a foot away from your target. Slowly move the can back and forth over the CDR's. Don't stop spraying or change directions in the middle of the CDR. You can stop and change directions over the free space you left on either side of each CDR back in step 2.
Don't try and cover the entire CD in one coat. You will need to paint 2 or three light coats. If you try and paint the CD in one swipe, you'll end up with a bunch of puddles of paint on the CD that will condense into drops. The surface tension of drops will actually pull paint off of the CD exposing the bare CDR surface.
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Primer is more forgiving. You can generally get away with one coat of primer in one step.
Step 5:
Wait about 12 minutes. Check the CDR. If feel that you need more coats of paint, repeat step 4 until satisfied.
Step 6:
Now that you have painted CDR's, bring them to your computer and start burning your music on them. If any paint got on to the data-side of the disk, the CDR will fail to burn. If it fails, congratulations! You now own a fancy coaster. Take the CDR outside at your own convenience and finish painting the data side.
If the CDR burns just fine, you now have a fancy-looking, custom paint job on your CDR!
Other things you can try:
Try spray painting the INSIDE of a clear jewel case. It will give a plastic jewel case a smoothe, wet-looking translucent color. Spray painting the outside doesn't look that great.
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Lay down one coat of paint, let it dry, and then put some of that blue masking tape that you can find at a local hardware store on the CDR. Now, lay down a second, different color of paint. Pull off the tape and you have a racing stripe on your CDR. You can write the name of your band in permanent marker in the middle of the stripe if you wish.
Are you good with stencils? Try spray painting your stencil art on a white-primer disk.
Why Even Do This?
The main reason to try CD painting is that the final product looks different. In the promotion game, any gimmick that makes you stand out is a plus. Everyone has a sharpie, lots of people use those donut shaped printer labels, not everyone paints. Paining is cheap too. You can cover dozens of disks with a cheap can of spay paint. I suppose it all comes down to opinion in the end. It depends on what you think looks more professional, a sticker printed by your computer, or a smooth coat of paint. Personally, I think any sticker that isn't made from vinyl looks cheap. Unless you have a $4,000 color laser printer, it's going to look cheap. But, that's my opinion. There is a danger with stickers: they come off. I had a sticker partially dislodge while inside my car's front-loading CD player durring a hot day. I had to use a pair of needle nose pliers to gently remove the disk and sticker.
Further Reading
Make a nice Origami CD holder for your CD. [ link ]
