Images_Digital_Edition_April_2019

IS DECORATOR PROFILE www.images-magazine.com 42 images APRIL 2019 I can deliver. I‘m not out to compete against all the blokes that are selling them for a fiver. I‘m out to give a bespoke product to someone who wants to be a cut above the rest.“ TV and film credits As well as doing logos for Le Mans cars and the likes of Lewis Hamilton and other Formula One drivers, Lhea has worked on jobs for TV and film over the years. The Airborne Division in the 2001 American mini-series Band of Brothers needed embroidery on their uniforms – and it had to look like it was from the 1940s. “We couldn‘t do it the modern way, we had to make it old-fashioned looking, so it was all scratched, rough, thick cotton. We literally had an old uniform from the Second World War, one that they wore, and we had to copy that. We had to allow for this thick, 1940s cotton to be sewn so it looks like it comes from the right era.“ Another job while at Punchlines was for Gladiator, the film starring Russell Crowe. “At the beginning, he marches through the forest and he has these huge three- metre flags, all gold embroidery. That was done by us. For the really large designs, the problem is an embroidery machine is only so big. And if you‘ve got a three-metre flag that needs to be embroidered, it has to be embroidered in sections. They have to embroider one 300mm square panel, move it across, do the next. So you‘ve got to keep making all these files that match up and overlap and perfectly line up with each other going around the flag.“ Not all of his work is big, bespoke projects though – he still does a lot of left breast logos. His prices are “pretty competitive“ with a turnaround of one to three days, and he emphasises the importance of treating customers well. “If a customer‘s got a question, ask away. If you need a little colour change or something quickly doing, I‘m not going to charge them for every single little thing. If it takes me a couple of seconds to change a colour for them, I just do it and email it back. It‘s all about customer service, at the end of the day. I‘m not a robot. We‘re all human. Let‘s all help each other out.“ His graphic design skills come in especially handy when doing logos, because he can see what needs to be changed to make them work. He also works as a freehand illustrator still, which also influences his digitising. A customer recently asked for an embroidery of their dog. “I can blend all the stitches and make it furry, because in my head I know how to draw it. I draw it using stitching and then when the result comes out, it looks real. There are all these blended details and different colours, which make it stand out. All these skill sets come in very handy.“ Experience counts Lhea‘s blend of artistic and graphic design skills combined with three decades of digitising make him an unusual – and sought-after – professional. He‘s watched Wilcom develop (and used to give feedback to the company on the earlier versions) and uses the latest version, along with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. He fervently believes, however, that his ‘old school‘ method of digitising is the reason he‘s used time and again by his customers. “The modern ways will work for some people, but I work in the old school way. Even though I‘ve got the latest software, I manipulate it and use it in the old school way. That‘s why my logos work the first time, every time, and why they stand out a little bit more. Customers don‘t want to keep messing around, running the design through different garments. They want it to work the first time, every time, with the least number of colour changes. They want it to run smoothly through hundreds of heads, on hundreds of tops. That‘s where my experience comes in.“ www.creativeneedle.co.uk Blended stitches create an authentic furry appearance Leah has been involved in embroidery since 1988 when he started his first job as a draughtsman for a digitising company