Design critique

Jan Hendrik · Jul 19, 2015

I have not designed any scrollwork for months due to work restraints in the jewellery trade. This design is meant for bolsters on a small hunting knife by South African knife maker Sean Culhane. I feel a bit rusty with my design skills. Any constructive critique welcome.

Jan Hendrik · Jul 20, 2015

atexascowboy2011 said:
Tuck your origin to the right, giving you room to round your scroll back.
Other than that flat spot you're looking good .

Thank you for the advice!

tdelewis · Jul 20, 2015

Looks like one scroll goes over top of the other. I think I would have them hooked together, where one goes under and comes out over top of the other.

Jan Hendrik · Jul 20, 2015

Here is the design re drawn. It seems like i suffered a bit from creative constipation. My original idea was to interlock the two scrolls. Somehow i got side tracked bigtime

monk · Jul 20, 2015

i like version 2 moreso than 1. i would add a scroll in the upper right. i think the leaves take up too much area. a distraction to my way of thinking. a pleasing design, other than that.

Jan Hendrik · Jul 20, 2015

Here is the design drawn in Corel Draw with some refinements done.

davidshe · Jul 20, 2015

I think it looks really clean and well balanced. Nice work Jan!

Andrew Biggs · Jul 21, 2015

Hi Jan

Not bad...........but

There are quite a few areas that need attention for the design to work properly.

The three big things are where the large and smaller scroll beneath it converge. You have made a very long flat spot.

The second area is your leaves. As you have drawn them they are lifeless and boring. You need to give them a bit of character.

The third is those leaves up on the top right hand corner. It is just one big clump of nothing growing out of the converging scrolls........you need to make the leaves come off the scroll properly or break the leaves down or add another scroll (or something).

I have given you something to think about

Cheers
Andrew

Jan Hendrik · Jul 21, 2015

Andrew Biggs said:
Hi Jan

Not bad...........but

There are quite a few areas that need attention for the design to work properly.

The three big things are where the large and smaller scroll beneath it converge. You have made a very long flat spot.

The second area is your leaves. As you have drawn them they are lifeless and boring. You need to give them a bit of character.

The third is those leaves up on the top right hand corner. It is just one big clump of nothing growing out of the converging scrolls........you need to make the leaves come off the scroll properly or break the leaves down or add another scroll (or something).

I have given you something to think about

Cheers
Andrew

Thank you for the effort Andrew! I will definitley make some more changes after seeing the points you highlighted on my design.

Jan Hendrik · Aug 20, 2015

So i made some changes to the design. I hope this is better?

Jared Eason · Aug 20, 2015

I would bring the starter scroll over to the right and kiss the scroll next to it. You would fill that gap and make room to round off the flat area coming off the starter scroll. Just my two cents

Southern Custom · Aug 20, 2015

Next thing to do is cut it and find out how it looks. Many times you'll find out after shading that places you thought would work are too dark, or light and out of balance with the rest. Areas like the top right leafy element. It can work but after cutting you may find that it's off balance compared to the rest of the design. Unless you have a heck of an eye for this stuff you just learn it by trial and error. You have to learn to visualize the piece shaded.
Have fun!
Layne

Jan Hendrik · Aug 20, 2015

I just fixed the starter scroll to touch the adjacent scroll.

Barry Lee Hands · Aug 20, 2015

A lot of good suggestions.
To my way of thinking there are threee basic problems here.
One problem is we have the first small scroll distorted because the point of origin is stuffed in the corner, which makes the first small scroll heart shaped, almost triangular.
The second problem is the small scroll itself. Usuall it is best to start from a large scroll and go smaller.
I think the root of these two problems is not thinking about scrolls as an inviolable unit , and worrying to much about where the point of origin is placed, leaves and in and outs, or intertwined scrolls as they are often refered to as, which leads to problem number three, filling the gaps left in the scrolls with leaves that are far larger than any inside the scrolls themselves..

Scrolls, in this type of work, should effortlessly fill the space.

here are my solutions, in the first # 1, I stick with the small scroll origination, all the scrolls are represented by 55 degree elipses, and we have some in and outs. It works, but is complicated when all the leaves are cut, and may not flow so great.
In # 2 we have no in and outs, my favorite. Simple and direct.
#3, my second favorite with in and outs.
I hope this helps.

atexascowboy2011 · Aug 20, 2015

Thanks for the lesson, Barry.

James Ashley · Aug 20, 2015

What a fantastic reply from Barry!

Jan Hendrik · Aug 20, 2015

Thank you for your valuable input Barry! I will definitely use the elliptical approach on my next design. Unfortunately the client is getting a bit anxious to get his knife engraved and i have no more time to spend on this particular design. I will keep drawing and practising whenever time permits. I will post pics of the actual engraving so we can see how the design turns out in the end.

Jan Hendrik · Sep 25, 2015

Finished cutting one side of the bolsters. I had some trouble cutting the shading lines at the rivets in the bolsters as the rivets are harder than the surrounding metal. I definitely need more practise!

Dani Girl · Sep 25, 2015

You get used to rivets after a while. First time i hit them I just went skidding across the metal. Now I can cut straight through one lifting my hand as i hit the harder rivet and dripping my wrist back down as I get back into the metal. As you say practice will fix that no worries.

Barry sure has given you a valuable reasource. I wander where he learned that/got the idea. It's a really great one.

Brian Marshall · Sep 25, 2015

"Rivets" require a little thought... and you definitely need to KNOW beforehand where they are!

If one of them is the hinge pin and that knife is not gonna collect dust in a dark safe - I sometimes try to work around it by making that the center of a flower, origin of a scroll or the finial.

Then building the design around that.

Mayhap, one day, that hinge pin will need replacing... and knocking the old worn one out to do that will kinda wreck the looks of the piece.

If it's the center of a flower, origin or finial - it doesn't look so bad and can easily be matched up with less work.

Brian

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