Need hi resolution photo of Easter Island moais as seen from a distance for a rain effect window

Aloha,
I am building a rain effect window just like the one in the Enchanted Tiki Room in Disneyland. I want to use a background picture of the Easter Island moais, as seen from a distance, as the background image for this rain window effect, so when you look out the window, it would appear as though you are looking at the moais from a distance.

I have the opportunity to have the image printed on a fabric/curtain type material, which works perfect for my purpose, and I can get one printed up at a great price if I can get a hi resolution photo within the next couple of days. I have no hi resolution photo myself, so I was wondering if anyone else around here might have one? The dimesnions of the window are 94 inches long by 34 inches tall, and here is a pic of the window that this fabric curtain background will go into, to make the rain window effect. Any help with some type of hi resoulution photo of the moais of Easter Island as seen from a distance would be much appreciated! Cheers!

"It's Mai Tai. It's out of this world." - Victor Jules Bergeron Jr.

[ Edited by: Mai Tai 2009-07-21 17:20 ]

Well, I keep meaning to get myself down there to take some pics but have not made it yet.

I would try the stock houses, that would be your best bet on such short notice. for such a large image you will probably have to pay a little.

http://www.istock.com of course
http://www.dreamstime.com has a nice free sharing network as well as for purchase.
http://www.superstock.com
http://www.BigStockPhoto.com
http://www.sxc.hu another free sharing site
http://www.comstock.com
http://www.corbis.com has some nice moai images as well

Good luck and let us know how it goes and post pictures!

I recommend dreamstime. I used one of their images for Tiki Daze.

Just a thought but when you find your image, you could have it printed onto vinyl like a big sticker and apply it to a sheet of 3mm opal acrylic (the milky white translucent perspex) and use it as part of your lightbox, Assuming the fabric was to be printed on a large-format digital printer, they would have adhesive vinyl stock too and it's waterproof, mouldproof, wrinkleproof and all the other proofs, coming from the sign & printing industry this is how i would do it...
Cheers
Tiki Trav

mai tai, i've built several (probably into the 100s) large lightboxes. let me know if you need any tips.

:wink: :) :lol:

Thanks for the tips guys! Bohemiann and Swanky, thanks for the site recommendations. So far I've only hit Dreamtime, but what I have seen so far is pretty good! Perry, I just might hit you up for some advice on building this lightbox. Trav, that is a great idea on putting it on vinyl, and applying it to an opal acrylic sheet. I could easily backlight it that way.

So far I've only poked around a little on Dreamstime, but I have found a few things that could work. Like maybe this one:

or this one:

or this one:

Whatever image I end up going with, I need to choose one that will still look okay when I heavily crop off the bottom and top, since this window is 94 inches long and only 34 inches tall. If you guys see anything cool that would lend itself to this window design, feel free to point it out! Meanwhile, I'll keep plugging away through photos as well. Cheers,
-Bill

P.S. Boris, no soup for you!!! :D

This guy posted some nice ones on TC a while ago:

http://woutervelthuis.web-log.nl/photos/travel_easter_island/copy_of_tongariki_pan_v2.html

Buzzy Out!

This image is pretty damn cool. If I can buy a hi-res copy from the guy, then I just might use it.

A couple more questions, especially for Trav. I was talking to Chongolio, since he does a lot of work with vinyl stickers, and he said that applying a large vinyl sticker to a large piece of opal acrylic might be hard, especially to get all the air bubbles out. He said that even if you use a pin to pop every little bubble that shows up, they will still show up like a big ol' pimple when the image is backlit.

If you guys have any tips on applying the vinyl image to the large sheet of opal acrylic to minimize or eliminate the air bubbles, that would be awesome. Maybe I can have the image printed onto a sheet of vinyl without an adhesive backing, and use some kind of spray on glue or tack to adhere the two. I'm also looking on getting the image printed directly onto the large sheet of opal acrylic as well. Hopefully I'll have an answer on these options soon.

Spray glue NO.
I have wrapped double decker busses in vinyl so I think I am qualified to answer for you...

One option is to use an "airflow" vinyl (3M Controltack etc but make sure it does not have Gray adhesive or it will block the light), it has like a hatching pattern in the adhesive which allows the air to escape so you just peel off the backing, flip it over and lay the entire print on the acrylic softly, paying no particular attention to bubbles. then using a scrunched up cotton rag rub it down in a circular motion from the middle outwards and all the air will be pushed out.

OR....

"wet application"... Mix a few drops of dish washing detergent or similar into a spray bottle with water. Make sure the Acrylic etc is dust free (very important) and SOAK the acrylic with your new miracle solution so it has a layer of water sitting on it (obviously we are working flat on a bench/table in both these methods).
Then lay the print on the acrylic face-down and peel off the backing paper, the water will kind of hold it in place but you still need two people, (IMPORTANT:don't get the backing paper wet before it's peeled or it peels off in little strips and will take hours and the print will probably be destroyed.) Make sure you have no breeze/fans etc that will dry the solution/blow dust onto it/ blow it off the table and stick the whole thing to it's self.

Now that the adhesive is exposed SOAK it too, making sure all of the adhesive is wet including the corners. this also makes the print easier to handle at this vulnerable stage cause it won't really stick to your fingers. Now flip it over and lay the wet adhesive side onto the wet acrylic and line it up, it shouldn't stick and will slip 'n' slide around on the acrylic so you get a few turns at getting it right but try to move at a steady pace. once it's lined up use a small credit card sized squeegee with some felt of rag wrapped over it so it doesn't scratch and starting in the middle squeegee the water out in smooth vertical straight strokes, work your way to one end then do the other end.

You will probably get some small bubbles which you can pop with an exacto but don't pop em in the middle, pop em at the very edge and work the air/water from the farthest point to the hole.

OR... Take it to a sign shop and have em do it.

Done.. now I'm going to look on youtube to see if all that was necessary.

SHIT...lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Vh4hObhVI

This is basically it...

Thanks for the info, Trav! And thanks for the YouTube video too - heh heh, they have everything on there. I bet there is a "How to build a Tiki Rain Window Lightbox" on there as well. Or there will be soon!

Okay so I have given this a little more thought.... During a night time rain/thunder/lightning storm, you only see silhouettes...bright light and black... if you use one of those prints it will flash a daytime-sun-n-surf image that will not really work. you need a silhouette of a hillside with the moai on it... so much easier artwork/effect to create too! Opal Acrylic & black paint.

Yeah, I have been thinking about that as well. What I want to achieve from this window effect is occasional rain, interspersed with occasional lightning and thunder - I will have a strobe hooked up, that will be synced with a soundtrack, so the lightning and thunder will go off at the same time.

I figure that during parts of the day, the Easter Island pic will be backlit, and then it will dim and fade away when a "rain storm" passes through, and also as the evening progresses. And when there is a lightning flash, then the pic will be briefly backlit to match the lightning and thunder.

To me that sounds like it should work, but if anyone else has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

I am looking forward to how this turns out. This might end up being a new business for you!!! :wink:

http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/hsh/804011134.html

So I'm waiting on quotes for getting an image printed directly onto a sheet of plastic, like what is used in signs and displays in stores, and also waiting on a quote for having the image printed onto a large sheet of vinyl that I could apply to a sheet of plastic. I should have an idea on pricing within the next few days or a week or so. I'm still hunting around for an image, although I think I've narrowed it down to two or so. Stay tuned for more details.

Oh, in the mean time, any and all tips on building a large 94 inch wide by 34 inch tall light box are more than appreciated!

Generally, printing directly to your acrylic will be more expensive as the printer (machine) required (Large Format Flatbed) costs about double to buy so the equipment cost is passed down to the customer, also if they f*#k up the print (which happens a lot) they have to cover the cost of more acrylic sheet. I have made 1000's of signs including backlit and never printed directly to the subsrate.

Also might be worth checking sign shops for surplus/un-paid for lightboxes, they can easily modify one to your size if they have one that's close.

just a lil FYI
Cheers
Tiki Trav

i can get acrylic printed for $9.5-10 sq. ft. here. i'm in pretty tight with the company that has the machine. it's a high resolution flat bed printer that prints UV ink directly on almost any rigid substrate.

bargain! that's super cheap...

Are you gonna use real rain? How do you get the rain clouds to stay in the right spot?

That is a good price, Perry! Remarkably, I think the preliminary rough quote that I got for printing directly onto the sheet of acrylic was approximately $10 a square foot as well, or roughly $200 bucks. The size of the sign that I need is maximum 94 inches by 34 inches, so that should be approximately 22 sq ft, or roughly $200. They are looking into getting the price down further.

Thanks for the info, guys. Yeah, I have someone that is giving me a Bro' hookup on this deal, so they are checking into the prices, especially printing onto the acrylic sheet. They had no idea what the cost was on printing onto the vinyl sheet as well, so I'm curious to see what the price difference will be.

I'll check into a light box from a sign shop, that is a great idea. But I have no problem assembling one out of wood, it shouldn't be that difficult. I just have to make sure that I can easily remove the plastic backlit sheet with the image on it, so I can change out the light bulbs when they eventually burn out.

I wasn't going to use real rain. I had planned on doing this similar to how Disneyland did theirs for their Enchanted Tiki Room. They use strips of clear mylar, and when the "rain storm" approaches, with the rain sound and thunder, they use a fan to blow wind onto the clear mylar strips, to blow them around. It makes for a pretty good effect.

I uderstand that the Enchanted Tiki Room in Walt Disney World in Orlando actually uses real water for rain in their windows. I don't think I could pull that off, and would also be concerned about it leaking long term.

I'll have a strobe light in the light box, and it will be synced to the thunder claps - whenever there is a thunder clap, the strobe will go off. Tiki Hula did something like this in his Kapili Room, and it worked out really well.

As for the clouds, I figured that just a general darkening of the backlighting of the image would suffice for when the clouds roll over. I guess if I wanted to get really fancy, I could have another image of the Easter Island pic, but have someone photo shop it to make it look all coudy and dark and stormy. That image could be placed an inch or two behind the other image, and it could be backlit to make the general overall image look stormy. I don't know if that would work, but I don't have the money to experiment with that for right now. :)

This is a great project. Just be sure that you absolutely love whatever image you choose. The Moai image looks great but for me, the lack of lush vegetation would be a no go. If I look out a window, I'd want to see a tropical jungle opening up to a beach. Maybe a distant volcano across the bay emanating a red/orange glow which gets brighter during the rain sequence. But again, that's just me. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to seeing the progress.

Maybe I would have more faith in the project if you were at least able to fix the photo in your signature. :roll:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=24608&forum=2

Ok Mr Boo... so how did YOU do it?

Hi Mai Tai, I'm planning to do a fake window with mural and diorama and have been looking at these two companies. Maybe you can find something there that works for you too.

http://www.muralsuperstore.com/tropical_murals1.htm

http://www.muralsyourway.com/myw4-cropping.cfm?pid=MMPIPI1088&opt=48&col=y&flp=n

Hope this helps.

I don't want to speak for Ben, but I did see Mark Walsh's office right after Ben finished some major work on it, and it totally rocks! It's amazing! Since Mark Walsh's office walls are basically deluxe pre-fab cube walls that go floor to ceiling, Ben couldn't cut into them to put in a window box or other stuff without it protuding through into the next office. So he had to build a false wall in front of that pre-fab cube wall, and place the rain window box effect into that. Pretty cool idea, I must say, and you can't even tell that false walls were put in when you are in Mark's office.

If I remember correctly, Ben used the clear mylar strips to simulate the rain, just like in Disneyland's Enchanted Tiki Room. In fact, I believe he pretty much built the windows in the exact same fashion as the ones in the ETR. No details on exactly how he built the window box - he'll have to tell us that himself. And I don't think that there's a background image in Mark's "windows" like what I want to do.

i don't know shit. don't worry.

Once you have it figured out, I am interested in hiring you to do one for my new tiki lounge room.
I just bought a house and the Sellers conveniently left me a finished room in the garage...

Any progress?????

Unfortunately, no. I'm still waiting on my friend to come in with the quotes. Printing onto a clear vinyl sheet or directly onto sheet plastic isn't in their department, so I'm waiting to hear when they found out what their special pricing will be. I should have an answer hopefully this Sunday at the Forbidden Island Parking Lot Sale, so stay tuned!

(Boris, insert witty rhetorical remark here).

Go ahead and yukk it up, but I think it's coming along nicely.

The Rain Window Project's Two Year Anniversary is coming up.

I guess I better get you something nice. :lol:

On 2011-07-11 16:03, Mai Tai wrote:
Hopefully I'll have them refinished and installed in the ol' home bar, next to Boris' rain window effect, by the end of the summer.

Well the Three Year Anniversary of the original post is coming up! :)

End of the Summer you say? Hmm, I notice you didn't say which year? Did you mean 2011? :lol:

If so I'll give you until the end of the year (That's 2011) and how about each week after the new year that you don't have it done you'll owe me a dollar? On the plus side for each week you come in before 1/1/2012 I'll give you Five dollars. Sound Like fun?

The rules are it has to be the working self contained rain window you described 3 years ago and not Hanford outside spraying the windows with a garden hose. :D

On 2011-07-12 21:34, Bora Boris wrote:
...I'll give you until the end of the year (That's 2011) and how about each week after the new year that you don't have it done you'll owe me a dollar? On the plus side for each week you come in before 1/1/2012 I'll give you Five dollars. Sound Like fun?

The rules are it has to be the working self contained rain window you described 3 years ago and not Hanford outside spraying the windows with a garden hose. :D

Hmmmmm... Okay, Boris, I accept this challenge! :) Heh, heh, against my better judgement, IT'S ON!!!

Starting now!

You can add me to the list of mere mortals that are trying to recreate something they saw at Disneyland. I want to make a sinking shipwreck in a bottle like in Trader Sam's. Start laughing, because it needs to be in an apartment friendly size.
If I accomplish that then I want to try to make an erupting volcano like they have too.

Yay for non-existent rain window birthdays!!! :)

On 2011-07-26 18:43, Mai Tai wrote:

On 2011-07-12 21:34, Bora Boris wrote:
...I'll give you until the end of the year (That's 2011) and how about each week after the new year that you don't have it done you'll owe me a dollar? On the plus side for each week you come in before 1/1/2012 I'll give you Five dollars. Sound Like fun?

The rules are it has to be the working self contained rain window you described 3 years ago and not Hanford outside spraying the windows with a garden hose. :D

Hmmmmm... Okay, Boris, I accept this challenge! :) Heh, heh, against my better judgement, IT'S ON!!!

Boris,
Care to revamp this bet? Say, strike some new terms? :D

Hey! I am working on a rain window now! Got a rope of misters from the hardware store and need to install soon...

:lol: I am always really amused every year this thread pops up. Somebody needs to make this project to give this poor old thread some dignity. :wink:

5 years, this is going to be one kick ass Maoi window thingy.

I have an idea, maybe someone has actually made one and could post it here? It could be a great motivator for Mai-Tai... or not.

Mai-Tai, I want to believe.

Is it raining yet? how about now? :)
Maybe we should give Bill a pass this year, he did just get married.....
and that took how long?

by the way congrats!!!