Need Help What to use for stained glass look

Up to you. Any translucent vinyl will work. I've printed on frosted for various effects..

 

We've printed on frosted and it looks pretty good. We've also done varying degrees of white (10%, 25%) behind color on clear vinyl (doesn't look as good). Frosted generally looks best, IMO.

There's a company called SOLYX (maybe others) that makes stained glass vinyl.

 

You get more of a stained glass look with transparent coloured vinyl but it's very see-through. If you want more opacity then use translucent or frosted which you can't see through at all aside from movement and shadows.

If you want a more authentic stained glass look you could combine 3M Fasara - OSLO (which gives the glass a textured watery effect) with transparent vinyl or print directly to it but I don't know if direct print would work on it.

 

you don't want translucent vinyl, you want transparent vinyl

 

transparent vinyl with a "double strike" print.

 

Way back when I did a job for a window tinter. Ran some tests on his various frosted films and let the client pick. Film printed great and it looked fantastic. Got to help on the install too. Quite a project.
Not positive on the film brand. It may have been Llumar.

 

Not sure how much work you want to put into it. Completely agree with transparent and overprint your ink twice. Any "framework" should be opaque, you could achieve this with a white print on top (becoming the back with your second surface application) or cut black on the back of the transparent print post application. Don't forget to mirror your cut vinyl as well as your artwork!

 

I did a job using transparent vinyl and edge printed some tones of color on it to achieve the look. Designed it with small "pieces" and added "leading" with vinyl stripes