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.