Request Design Critique

Attached please find my first design for a 1911 slide. Your honest critique is sincerely appreciated. Thank you.

The part with your design did not show for me, just the outline.
The Caspian style 1911 is a nice gun to cut, I just finished one.

Here it is

Guess I uploaded the wrong file. Thanks for pointing that out, maybe someone can be used for an outline.
Here is the right one:
The top of the slide is frosted. Can I engrave on it and then polish off my burrs or should I sand it off first? Would it be ok to ask for a ball park figure on value when I am done? I have no idea what to ask. The other engraving work I did was in a print shop.

The first 1911 I did I made the same mistake you are about to make I wish I had ron smiths books sooner. The area to the rear of the slide grip the scroll should be the same size as the rest of the slide. I did not notice until I was done with the whole thing then it stuck out like a sore thumb.

Hi Theresa,
Wow, where to start? First I commend you for your willingness to jump on a gun, but if the only other work you have done is print shop work, I would HIGHLY encourage you not to do this at this time. Start on some less ambitions projects, and learn how scroll works and how it cuts. Do a practice plate with a sample of what you have drawn. The design you have drawn would be nightmare to cut, because it would take three times as long as normal scroll pattern. I could make some comments on what you have drawn thus far, but realistically, I think you should try tracing someone else's scroll along a 1911 slide and get a feel of traditional scrollwork for bit, before designing your own. Some tracing paper and few hours going over other peoples lines will show you a lot. See how it flows and then later cut some samples of i what you like and some samples of what you have drawn here, and I think you will pretty fast see what I mean.

What to charge is a very subjective thing, and very possibly the first few items that you do, should not be charged for. Do keep track of your time, as it has to be a factor in what you do charge.

I might also add that your gun outline with the two sides and the top all drawn together could possibly cause you some design trouble. You need to look at the main elements of the gun FIRST and then blend in other things.

The main elements of a 1911 is the flat sides, so I would draw one till it looked right, and then try to mirror image it on the other side as much as possible. Then see about how to add in the top of the slide which normally is viewed alone, but the bottom edge elements should blend with what is one the side. I really wish the book American Engraver's was more commanly available, as it is a great resource for various types of scrolls, and numerous styles of guns. BUT, I still think it should be in any serious want-to-be-engraver's library even at it's its 100-200 price tag. I think it is that great of an asset to learning scrolls.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0917714296/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

has one for 50 bucks, somebody would be crazy not to buy it if you don't have it.

Design Critique

Theresamarieus

I am really uncomfortable judging someone else's work, but here go's.

The first thing that stands out to me is the smoothness of your scrolls.



If you use or have access to Adobe illustrator or Coreldraw, I would suggest a free program called spxe.exe.

A Tutorial on its use with Coreldraw.

http://handengravingforum.com/showthread.php?t=3029&highlight=spxe

I also would recommend Ron Smith's Book on drawing Scrolls.

Ken

While I appreciate your comments, I don't really understand what you mean. Although I haven't posted before, I have been following the board for some time. I went to Emporia four years ago and spent several thousand dollars in tools and equipment. Since that time, I have been practicing for quite some time by copying scrolls. I bought both Ron's books,among others, although I certainly could not claim to understand everything about scrolls. I engraved jewelry and knives. The time I spent in the print shop was thirty one years as a roto gravure cylinder maker serving a five year apprenticeship under a journeyman engraver with forty years experience. Perhaps my drawing does not communicate well what I am trying to accomplish. I will redraw the spines although I am not sure which scroll near the trigger guard is a different size. I measured them both the same. I wonder if the placement of leaves and the small scroll on the right misleads the eye. Thank you so much for your time and attention.

I apologize for the inconsistancies in my drawings. I realize that may effect understanding during the critique. I hate to beat a dead horse, but am concerned all the practice I have been doing was apparently completely wrong. I am confused that perhaps leaf placement or the way I attached scrolls is incorrect. Embarrassing as it is to admit, I thought this layout looked like it flowed. I was going to use it to practice other types of scroll. I appreciate the ability to get solid advice from others who are more experienced. I looked through Ron's books again and read through the rules. Apparently I just don't really get the idea. Although I love his work and have spent hours gazing at his designs, I am not ready to do so much at one time. I was going for a simpler design. Because the craft is visual, I can more easily understand the point if it is drawn out. Thank you for your time in pointing out where I have gone astray. Here is the backbone scroll I used before filling with leaves.

You have received some good advice from Scott and Ken. I will add this: Go to the following link and study this piece of basic, traditional gun scroll designed by Sam Alfano. It will look good on any gun and will teach you what proper scroll looks like.
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-illustration-10510948-traditional-scrollwork.php

As we have said here so many times, a good design poorly executed will always look better than a poor design well executed. Of course the idea is to achieve good design and execution. You were wise to come here for advice before you start cutting a gun.

CRB

I will gladly admit to being a complete and total idiot if you would just please indicate visually where I have gone wrong so that I can correct my mistakes. I have already viewed Sam's work at that site and agree it is absolutely wonderful. Unfortunately I am unable to pick this up on my own just by viewing his examples. While the advice may very well be excellent, unfortunately I have already done most of those activities before I made this scroll. I realy truly believe I could learn this if I were shown graphically where I had gone wrong with specific suggestions for corrections. The vagueness of previous suggestions leaves me unable to offer improved scrolls for review. I guess that is one of the problems with working on your own. Now I am at a loss for how to proceed further.

Your flows from one scroll to next are all correct. This version is much more correct than first one. But with your leaves crossing back and forth across the backbones as in your original sketch, it would make a very difficult scroll to cut, (and looks bad IMO).

Your orgination points at 1 and 5 are not coming smoothly off the border, but rather at almost 90 degree angles from the slide serrations. If you have a scroll orginating from a border, it should come out smoothly at a 5-10 degree angle or so.

None of your scrolls fill in the entire area. I have placed yellow dots at all the places the rotation of the scrolls should have touched.

Oirgination scrolls in size are you main body scrolls, and scrolls proceeding from them should be either the same size, or diminishing in size (think of a tree trunk). The scrolll between 5 and 6 is your origination scroll, therefore it’s size is the size of your main body scrolls. It diminishes at 6 which is fine, but at 7 it grows out to the main body size again. This is wrong. You would never see this in nature except as a freak or unnatural occurrence. Same with scroll between 1 and 2 they are fine (except for not filling out the areas to the yellow points. But between 2 and 3 you have the scroll going into a small series of leaves or something??? Not sure, but then a main body scroll appears from the leaves again at 3. Have you ever seen a great big tree trunk originate from a small leaf? Somehow you need to show the main body scrolls between 2 and 3 as they would grow from each other, Or have separate self originating scrolls, one starting at 3 and another starting at two. This would probably work nicely in balance with the opposite side where you have the narrowing under the ejection port.

Okay, I’m tired, time to go to bed.

Design Critique

Theresamarieus

Do not get discouraged, the best Engraver on this forum was a beginner at one time.

Do you have Ron Smith's hardback book on drawing scrolls (if not you should get it, it is more expensive but has much more information).

I will try to help you tomorrow, now it is well past my bed time.

Ken

I think you really need to read Ron's book and do a bit more drawing. You are on the right track as far as the basic backbones but the leave structure needs work. I think you need to "simplify" the design at this point. You are adding overlapping leaves and such but they just aren't in the right places.
As far as the design on the top of the slide... You are going to open a real can of worms here. First, you must sand this out before engraving. I am not familiar with this model to know how rough the surface is but I am guessing it will be a lot of work. Next, you have a "mirrored" pattern. These are difficult to layout and cut for the experienced engraver let alone the beginner. Any differences in cuts show up as a red flag. Plus, the pattern should actually touch and not have a gap between the two. A simpler pattern would be a better choice on top.
Not trying to throw cold water on you but you asked for advice. Your friends and relatives will tell you it looks wonderful but they may never have seen engraving before.
I would really consider doing a simpler job for now and get a better understanding of the design of scroll before jumping into a project like this.
Rex

Hi Theresa, you've got some good advice starting here but please don't beat yourself up or think what you've learned at college was incorrect. You've been to school and learned the theory but now you are looking to enter the real world. Firearms engraving is very specialised and where some design elements might work on a flat copper plate or (dare I say) piece of jewellery, putting the same thing on a gun can look wrong.

Your basic design is okay (yes, the shapes need working on a little) but where it falls down is that the scrolls are empty. A smaller scroll will easily fit inside the gap and in the valley on the back of the scroll and this is repeated throughout the design.

When starting out, stick to the English style of scrolls. By this I mean keep your spirals clean and don't let any of the inside work (i.e. leaves and tendrils) encroach over the spine. Once you have the English style cracked, then you can move on to more flamboyant styles.

Although often thought of as a simpler form of scroll, the English style will show up any flaws in your technique and this is why you should endeavour to learn this first. Like Scott says, show us your work on a practice plate or two FIRST. The advice the others have given you is to stop you jumping in and making what could be a huge screw up. Often what you put out there to the wider world is how you will be perceived throughout your engraving career and the folks here want to help you give it your best shot.

Andrew Biggs did a great post explaining exactly what's meant by 'your scrolls should touch'

click here to see it. The thread that it's in is a forum classic and well worth reading.

Theresa,
If you have my first book "understanding scroll designs", it is not nearly as thorough as the second, "Advanced drawing of scrolls".

You commented that you had been studying my book and just looking at designs is a slow way to learn. In order to understand what you are looking at, you need to tear the structures down line by line and learn how each line relates to the other lines that make up the leaf structure, spiral, etc. I have done this for you in the second book so you can see how to study the leaf. Pay attention to to angles lines depart from, parallel or oblique, etc.

I explain all of this in my second book. Start by learning a graceful leaf. You can learn spirals and balance with Marcus' suggestion, as English scrolls are the most basic scroll formations. Once you have that, try skipping a leaf, leave a little stem and put in background between the leaves. This should give you a well balanced design with equal leaf masses and equal background spaces, providing your spacing of the leaf cuts are consistent. Then move on to more complex designs. Remember too that you are being critiqued by master engravers who have spent a life time at this. You will not jump across years of experience in a short while.

Next perfect your spiral, then pay attention to how one spiral merges away from the previous one.

You are doing good. Don't get discouraged and all of your practice will pay off. You have not wasted your time unless you aren't learning anything.

When you find a leaf you like, study it in detail, line for line.

You know what a car engine does and a bit how it works, but until you break it down piece by piece, and see how each piece relates to the other you really don't understand it. Same with scroll designs. It took me about ten years to learn there was an easier way of study and it is in line relationships.

I have found it hard to get this across to students, but in the long run you will save yourself an awful lot of time and shorten your struggle. We all went through it, and I would say compared to some of my first efforts, yours looks fantastic.

1. Notice the spacing of leaves.
2. Notice the mass and spacing of backgrounds for this is the beat of your work like in music.
3. Make your designs, spirals, and leaves have an equal perimiter or imaginary line around the whole design the spirals and/or leaves touch, or up to the borders if you have them. Hope this helps a bit, but there is a lot to learn isn't there?

Rock on Theresa,

Ron S

Hi Theresa

I will add my voice to what the others have said.

Please don't take this the wrong way and as some form of discouragement because as I mean it to be helpful.

Unless there is some sort of compelling reason that you have to engrave this gun I would suggest that you put it aside for another day in the future. Basically you are heading for a bit of a disaster that you will learn very little from.

From what I can see of your drawings there is an awful lot that you do not understand about scroll design and this will also manifest itself in the cutting. By taking on this project you will make it very hard on yourself and anyone trying to help you out. There is so much wrong with it that it is virtually impossible to critique every single thing.

I would highly recommend that you take another look at the Ron Smiths books. In each chapter he shows you how a scroll is formed and the leaves. Ron designed the books to be a work book so that you actually draw and do the exercises that he lays out.............this will build up some very basic knowledge for you. But you have to practice the exercises diligently and spend a lot of time doing it. Your drawing practice will help with the cutting and the cutting will help your drawing practice.

I also suggest that you buy some small cheap stainless steel practice items from GRS like their key fobs and bracelets. Practice on these with your drawing and cutting.

Start with one scroll and learn to draw and cut it well. Then join a second scroll to the first and learn how the two connect properly. Then add a third scroll and after that how to intertwine them. Draw borders and learn how the scroll connects with the border and how they are cut.............................................But start at the beginning first with one decent scroll................you will learn a lot more by doing that and people can then help you out a lot better as it's far easier to critique the work.

That is the key to just about everything. Once you can draw/cut one good scroll.....................then it becomes a lot easier to do just about anything.

I know that is not exactly what you want to hear ..................but it is the best advise that I can give you. Start at the beginning with small simple steps and that way you can take on bigger projects like the gun further down the track. Don't worry, we've all been through the same thing and we can all relate to what you are trying to do and your enthusiasm to get stuck into it.

Cheers
Andrew

You know if all us had spent time cutting scrolls instead of what we have spent typing about this from three continents, between us we could just about be finished with this slide by now.