With the Sign Magic Workshop now just over a month away it is time to get busy with the preparations. Each guest will receive a routed name plaque to take home with them. Through the years of the workshops I've designed and routed more than 200 of these name plaques - all different. they are a great way to learn the program!
For Kyle I decided a checkered flag would be cool. I wanted it to wave both vertically and horizontally. I would do it using some cool tools in EnRoute. I first created a rectangular flat relief. then I imported a checkered bitmap from my TEXTURE MAGIC COLLECTION. I carefully sized the flat relief to fit the checkered squares.
I then applied this bitmap.
I added an outline using the offset drawing tool.
Then I added a subtle texture using a bitmap called SPLOTCHES. This would make the adding of glazes much easier later when we were doing the paint.
The lettering border was next, created as a separate flat relief.
Then I added the beveled lettering to the border. Notice the beveled letters have a base of 0.15" as this makes them easy to paint. I merged highest all the pieces to make one relief.
I then selected the base relief and the lettering vectors to add a subtle texture using the splotches bitmap once more but only to the letters this time. The border around the letters remained smooth.
To create the vertical wave in the flag I used another bitmap. The white would raise while the black did nothing, greys something in-between. I used a value of 0.6" which makes things pretty dramatic.
I tool pathed the name plaque using a 3/8" ball nose bit for the rough pass (50% overlap) and then a final pass was done with a 1/8" ball nose bit at 80% overlap. The flag was routed from 1.5" thick 30 lb Precision Board.
Stay tuned for more name plaques in the coming days.
-dan
