board#036: funboard for Eva

dimensions: 7'6 x 21 1/2 x 2 3/4
[completed in March 2014]

The story: while vacationing in France last Christmas I was in the SWOP shaping room to make Sylvain's board (click here to see his mini-gun). I felt so welcomed and cozy in the workshop that I decided to shape another board for a family friend. Eva is a young surfer from Paris who is ready to move on from foam boards to a "real deal" surfboard for next summer.

The shape: Being her first surfboard ever, Eva did not have a precise idea of the shape which will fit her. She relied on me to create an easy to paddle, stable board, in brief, something to have plenty of fun with right away. I made a 7'2 funboard with  plenty of volume on the rails for a fun factor but still some rocker on the nose for when she'll be dropping in more serious waves. In summary, she can keep that board for a while (if she wants to :)) even if her surf skills improve fast. You can actually watch me shaping this board in a 2 min time-laps as David set-up his GoPro in the shaping room to capture a picture every 2 min. Very cool idea from David!!

The design: to be honest, when I sat with Eva to talk about her board we had a little chat about the shape and 90% of the discussion was about the artwork :) She wanted something an all over artwork with an earthy/indian vibe. Her mom, Marie, is an expert of web design/master in Illustrator and she came up with a breathtaking dreamcatcher design. Before I left France I just had the time to spay paint the background colors on the foam. Back in the US, I worked with Marie and John at Boardlams.com to print the dreamcatcher part on rice paper. I had to go with a fancy opaque print which consist of a two layer print: a white layer under the actual design helps to keep the design opaque when laid on the painted board. Thanks to Marie's expertise in Illustrator, I was able to send the right files to Boardlams and the result was phenomenal. Once I got the printed rice paper, I had to ship it to David at SWOP for him to glass the board…in France. Huge logistic effort ! I would like to thank everyone from US and France who contributed to the creation of this very artsy surfboard.

Thanks David for giving me a hand
and for allowing me to finish on time

The final touch is the logo placement!