Black background? Plan ahead!

Sam

Chief Administrator & Benevolent Dictator
Staff member
Joined
Nov 6, 2006
Messages
10,490
Location
Covington, Louisiana
thin_leaf_tips-sm.jpg

This is a hastily drawn example I did for a student today that shows what can happen if element tips get too small against a relieved background.

The outline in example 1. looks nice and has sweeping curves, etc. However, if the background is removed the effect is lost as the background is thrown out of balance because the leaf tip's not wide enough for relief engraving. In other words, there's not enough white space in the tip.

In example 2. the element tip is kept thicker with more whitespace and the end result is a much better balance of negative space.

Keep this in mind when you're designing for black background work. It's an easy mistake to make.
 

FANCYGUN

~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Joined
Nov 10, 2006
Messages
1,840
Location
West Grove, PA
Usually when i know i am doing a dark background i try to cut on the outside of my scroll lines as opposed to on them in order to hopefully avoid that common problem yup...plan ahead
 

Eric Olson

Elite Cafe Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2010
Messages
221
Location
Louisville, CO
I remember a reference to the "shrinkage factor" in Ron Smith's book, but it is not clearly defined -
This is for sure what he's talking about.
 

Sponsors

Top