I've recently been mucking around with Artscow as a printing service and last month tried out a printed pitch on a product they sell as door mats. Here's a quick look at the result; I wasn't disappointed (though in my latest design I've used bigger squares and abandoned the embedded dugouts).
The material is half rubber, half some sort of wiry felt. It's real purpose at point of manufacture is as a doormat, and it's apparently cleanable with hot soapy water without losing any of the colour. Certainly it feels robust and permanent enough.
The bottom layer is rubberised and non-slip, so good for pub tables. It's not likely to get accidentally bumped, at least.
The top layer is ever so slightly glossy. I honestly don't know how to describe this stuff... it's like a compacted fibre, sort of a soft version of the scouring side of a dish sponge. It's got a satisfyingly grass like quality to it. Frankly, it’s *much* more awesome in real life than this picture communicates…
Finally, size. My original print was slightly smaller than a full sized blood bowl pitch, as necessitated by the inclusion of dugouts alongside the main pitch. A full BB field averages 29mm width squares; the squares in the copy pictured are between 26mm and 27mm. Overall it doesn't feel too small for 25mm and 30mm bases, but it's probably not ideal to be running with a load of 40mm bases on this thing (though that's also true of the boxed pitch). With that in mind I’ve revisited the design and built in an increase in the size of the squares to a little over 28mm for the templated version available from artscow.
Since printing the test copy out, I've actually created a series of templates to allow anyone else interested in getting their hands on one of these to choose from a range of preset colour combinations, add their own logo and order a custom pitch directly. The mat is usually US$30 plus delivery, but there's often a special deal on that brings that down significantly, and at the moment that deal is 20% off and free shipping on everything in the artscow store (Coupon Code: MDYRSALE14, Expiry Date: 27/06/2014).
So, if anyone else out there is keen to try out what amounts to a pretty cost efficient pitch option, here's how to get your hands on one of your own.
1) Visit my gallery link below. Pick a colour set you like, then you can either print as is, or you can add a logo. NB: Chrome doesn't work for this part, you need microsoft silverlight and internet explorer.
http://www.artscow.com/user/steve-arthurs-1949339
2) To add a logo, edit your chosen template before adding to cart.
You'll be taken to a screen that looks a bit like this. Upload your logo using the Album tab in the top right hand corner. At this point you're probably going to want to zoom out of the pitch so you can see what you're doing. Use the slider in the top left hand corner.
Then, select and drag your logo from the right hand pane to the green box in the middle of the pitch. Make sure your image has a transparent background if it's not square.
If you want to muck around with the logo further, you'll need to dig into the layers. Click on the main area of the pitch and "send to back" using the editor bar (pictured bottom right). You should then be able to alter the image freely, moving it up or down, zooming in or out etc (see the final screenshot). If you do though, remember to check you're happy with the layer order at the end of editing; besides the background of the pitch itself, you'll need to ensure the small crosses and pitch markings are the right way round (my preference is crosses on the top, logo second and pitch markings last).
When you're done, scroll back to the top of the page and hit the big red "add to cart" button.
Enjoy! Hope this is useful to somebody somewhere! If you get stuck and need some pointers, just ask and I'll help if I can.
Cheers
