Over the course of a few years, I had to opportunity to create 2 limited edition K2 Iron Maiden skis. Being a long time fan, this was a treat.
The Trooper art is absolute iconic imagery from Maiden's 'Piece of Mind' album. We didn't want to just reproduce the existing art onto a ski, so I took the opportunity to illustrate Eddie, giving this classic image a modified look. The final result was a band, team and consumer favorite.
The year before we created our first ski using the artwork from the Killers album. We utilized a 4 color print for the top but I needed to create a base of the same design. Base die-cuts are basically a giant puzzle of interlocking colors of P-Tex base material. You need to be cognizant of cut angle, the size of the pieces, etc. I'm more than satisfied with the end result and I'm pretty sure I pissed off both the factory and the process group with the base complexity.