#pin tutorial

Someone asked me how I made the pins when I originally posted that I was making pins earlier, so I decided to made an in depth tutorial.

First things first, supplies!

You will need:

Paper (and a printer, unless you want to draw it out yourself)

Scissors

Glue (I use a gluestick because it's what I have on hand, but if you use something like school glue you might have to be careful not to saturate the paper with it)

Pins (the ones in the picture are some I've already painted, which will be explained in the prep step)

Paint (color doesn't actually matter much, but know that theres a chance it will alter the tint of the pins)

Some kind of sealant (I use acrylic sealer because that's what I have on hand, but things like mod podge and clear nail polish work too) bonus points if it's glossy ✨️

Step one: Prep!

Print out/draw the designs you want on the pins. Here, I have my sweet dork of a f/o, Deidara.

This is also the stage where you'll paint your pins, because if they have designs on them already (like mine did) it can show through during the sealant step. That's what happened to me on my first attempt (I ended up having to redo them all, which worked out because now I'm making this tutorial <3) I used black paint, which gave them a darker undertone after spraying the sealer on them.

Step two: Cutting and Gluing!

When cutting, it's a good idea to leave some excess and trim it off later (if the pin is too big for the design, you can fill in the white edges with a local color to bridge the gap)

Now for gluing, slather some glue on the back of the picture and line it up with the pin to the best of your ability.

Now you can trim the edges, but still keep a bit of excess so you can fold it over the edge of the pin. I do this by smoothing outward from the center of the picture, and then around the edge.

Now you're nearly done! Give your character / f/o a smooch for getting this far 😘

Step three: Sealing!

For this final step, you just need to take your sealant and apply it to the top of the pins. You can also use this time to make sure that the extra edge (that was folded down) is glued down securely. I skipped this part because these pins are going into my ita bag, but I recommend you do this if they’re going to be in a less protected spot.

I did not heed the instructions on my sealer and accidentally sprayed way too much at once. My poor boy 😭 (it's not too terrible at least, and should be better when it's dry)

And that's all, folks! Have fun with your new knowledge and stay creative!

Bonus:

My ita bag!!

Hello nonnie, I’m sorry for the delay in answering, but YES you can use any art program to draw the pins, whatever you feel comfortable with, I’ve used both Procreate and Paint Tool Sai for them in different occasions.

2. For the shiny metal effect I’ve created a pattern that I just clip on to the lineart layer ( that’s why it’s important to have a separate layer for the lines and another for the colors ), below is an example of how I do it: 

Diagonal strokes work best in my opinion and you can change the color according to what you want your pin plating to be, most common are silver, gold, black or rose gold. The metal effect is not required or necessary at all, so don’t worry too much about it — I only apply it to give my backers an idea of how the final product is going to look, but I’ve also seen many backers just skip that so if you want to do it, I think it looks cool but over all it’s really not required ;u; 

3. I personally prefer to save my files as vectors / .ai ( Adobe Illustrator vectors ) since that’s what is easiest for the manufacturers to use and I can make sure the proof they provide is identical that way — but most manufacturers can work just fine with png or jpeg or psd ( basically anything ) as well since they do have special designers to do the vectorizing for you if you don’t already have a vector / ai file.