FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Entertainment

Hydrodipping: The 'Redneck' Artform Taking YouTube by Storm

Hydrodipping, a colloquial term that refers to using water transfer printing to apply colorful designs to three-dimensional surfaces, has quickly gone from a niche hobby to a viral trend.

If you're an avid hunter or outdoorsman, you've almost assuredly seen guns, boots, antlers, skulls, and other paraphernalia colored via this process. And even if you're not, you've still probably seen a few hydrodipping YouTube videos, some of which have millions of views.

"Hydrodipping is a rad effect, an ingenious way to print on a 3D surface," Pittsburgh-based illustrator Emily Traynor told me.

The process was developed by engineers in Japan during the early 1980s as a way of taking two-dimensional images from pieces of film and spreading them evenly across objects. The film, which had been gravure-printed with the image, is dissolved in the water. After the item getting hydrodripped is submerged, the image on the film curves around the item's surfaces.

Read more on Motherboard.