Design and Making of Tournament Balls

In this tutorial I am going to demonstrate the design process for the making of the tournament balls available at mysubbuteo.com. Those highly detailed balls can be used to play table soccer or for collective purposes. This is a demonstration video and you need to have some familiarity with design software already.

For this video, I am going to make the adidas Torfabrik used in Bundesliga for the period 2011-12.

Every design starts with a clear image from google or wherever. Find the one you like and save it on your desktop.

Import the image in your Design Workspace.

Next I am going to do some scaling. A table soccer ball measures 22 mm in diameter. So I am resizing the image to match the diameter of a 22 mm circle.

With the use of basic shapes, the bezier tool and the shaping tools, I start making the basic parts of the design. Bear on mind that I only design a part once and duplicate where possible, reducing the overall amount of the work. The whole process is basically tracing the photograph to vector design, keeping in mind that the design will have to be transferred via a decal print on a miniature 22 mm ball.
This design in particular despite looking complicated, it is actually quite simple, as it consists of very basic shapes. I am using circles, trapezoids, and lines in combination with the shaping tools until the basic pattern is completed.

Once this pattern is ready, I can start adding the texture and the right colours on my design.

From time to time, I am making the layer my photograph is placed visible in order to make sure that everything I am drawing is accurate.

The first patch is now ready. Next thing is to add several lines and basically make an accurate representation of the original ball. This process can take quite some time. The good news is that once the patch is ready, the work is pretty much done. The ball consists of 4 identical patches and connecting lines between each other.

I have now completed most of the drawing, with only some finishing touches, mainly the inner lines of the design. When this is done, it is time to add the logos. Fortunately, there is no need to make those from scratch. Vector drawings for virtually every logo can be found online. Add them on the right place and we are done.
So here we are, another decal design is finished, ready to be printed on decal paper.

Here you can see the application of the printed decals on a blank table soccer ball.
I use the HKM scissors to separate each patch.

I also make a few cuts with a scalpel to help the decal sit on the curve properly.

The main challenge when I apply decals on balls is their round shape.
The green bottle contains a mix of micro scale micro set and micro sol 1:1. I use this with a bit of water and micro sol separately to soften the decals.
I lift the decal with a pair of tweezers and carefully place it on the ball.
Finally, with a brush dipped in micro sol, I carefully spread the decal on the surface.
I repeat the process for the rest 3 patches, let dry and varnish. The tournament ball is now completed. Many thanks to Stratos Routsis for his help with the decal application.

Видео Design and Making of Tournament Balls канала mysubbuteo