Custom Laser Engraved Pokémon Skateboard.
I had seen that there was a post on Instagram of someone making custom Pokémon Longboards. I decided I wanted one but I’m not made of money. So I made my own instead.
Plus it was an excuse to have a project that involved my new toy, the companies laser cutter!
Laser Cutting a Skateboard
Unfortunately I didn’t document this side project too much and so all the photos are pulled straight from a Whatsapp conversation with my friend. And what’s better? I cant find the design file that I made that contained all the patterns for laser cutting. So its kind of spotty with the photos of this project and I apologise.
First I had to go through the long and arduous process of selecting a Pokémon to be the centre piece of my skateb- Cyndaquil. I knew from the beginning it was going to be the Johto fire stater Pokémon Cyndaquil , of course it was going to be him, I even have a tattoo of him for goodness sake.
After that I had found some vector files of him from the underrated Mystery Dungeon spin off games with his little bandana. After separating all his features and colours I then had to design the shape/silhouette of my board. I’ve always been a fan of cruising style boards like longboards and penny boards more than the traditional pill with curvy ends so I made my board my take on a cruiser board. Influenced by the older style of skateboards in the 80s.
After that I wanted to have my boy sat on a repeating pattern of Pokéballs, but I despise perfect symmetry so I made the pattern irregular switching between two styles of engraving.
After all that designing was done it was time to go to the new company machine and cut out my design in pieces and get ready for painting!
In an ideal world I would’ve liked to have cut all the pieces in naturally coloured wood that corresponded to the colours of Cyndaquil. But again I’m not made of money and this project was using just scrap pieces of wood that was left over from the last job.
I knew I wanted to keep the wood grain visible on my board, so aerosol and acrylic brush on paints were out of the question. I wanted the colours to appear of more of a stain than a paint, so I came up with the idea of heavily dilating my airbrush paints with paint thinner so create a wood stain of sorts.
With this revolutionary idea I began to ‘paint’ the wood using my stains and an old saturated rag, dragging the stain over the wood being sure to not leave streaks or puddles. And voila! a coloured wooden depiction of my favourite Pokémon.
Now time to drill out the hardware holes and attach the trucks and wheels.
You may notice the wheels look quote well worn for a brand new board. And I have to confess I did cannibalise one of my childhood boards to attach to this one. But a noble sacrifice indeed, plus I think these wheels and trucks are grateful to be removed from a budget ‘My First Skateboard’ sold in ASDA stores in the late 2000s.
Topping of with some fresh grip tape, my project was complete. This board was only meant to be a wall art piece and not a rideable board seeing as it was just a few thin layers of laser cut plywood stuck together, but surprisingly it did support my weight and did function as a normal skateboard. Though I’m not sure how long it’d last with extended use. But for now it lives in my office as a bit of trendy wall art.
