al mar knife

Hello again everyone. Here's an al mar knife that the manager of the jewelry store I work for bought for me to engrave. I just drew the scrolls on w transfer wax and sharp pencil. I learned alot doing this knife. It's also my first commisioned job and I'll make a whopping $100. It think I made the scrolls to small and wish I had done a drawing of it first but I was kinda in a rush. What do you guys think? Any comments welcome.
Jeff

good job, but Monk says the real money is in doing snuff cans !!!!!

Looks like more than $100 to me.
Kevin P.

Looks good to me Jeff. I like your design. I have a couple of Al Mar knives I hope to do at some point. I really like the ones in pearl from the 80's. Very well made knives.

Peter

I don't think the scrolls are too small. It looks like a suitable size for the knife. Hard to tell by the photos, but it looks like you did quite a bit of fine shading. Congrats on your first paying job!

Looks good Jeff. I also think the scroll is not too small. Thanks for sharing.

Joe

Very impressive for a first job. Lots of shading.
How long did it take you to do the job?

Boris

Very nice Jetta,

Looks very good, and I wonder if you came out on it for a hundred bucks, but I have done the same thing. We all have. It is good to work on actual projects and get paid for them is it not?

The hard part is keeping it reasonable for you as well as the customer.

It also good to have a real purpose for your work, other than just practicing all the time.

You asked for comments so here goes...............

For a little constructive critisism, the design seems segmented to me, although very well done, in that it is divided into sections. Background spaces are varying considerably in volume and size. This is a little balance and rythum problem.

Focal points are things that attract your eye in an unbalanced way. (clustered leaves, creating a mass of surface metal compared to the background areas around the piece in the rest of the composition).

Since the star is the center piece, there should be no other elements to compete with it, rather enhancement of its importance. It holds that position pretty well, but there are some background spaces that conflict with it due to the starkness and size of the spaces.

Step back away from it and this situation will reveal itself I think. Or check it out in the mirror. Your customer will not know the difference, and will be very well pleased as I would be. For a design right off the top of your head, it is very good and for 100.00 dollars, there is a lot of good work there.

These are nit-picky things, for the work is well executed, and it is very attractived.

These are just little suggestions that would improve it just a bit, and something to watch for in the future.

Food for thought and little improvements:

Another suggestion (Over-all composition), would be to allow the scrolls to run under or behind the subject and shade the perimeter around the star to bring it forward, having a continuous flow of scroll from one end to the other. But this is just the way I would do it.

Shading your overlaps a little more will give it a bit more intensity and will define and seperate the elements (over and under scrolls) for more depth.

Your customer is getting a bargain, and you should be proud of this beautiful effort.

Well done!.......Bravo!

Forward!

Ron S

Nice job Jeff

I think this is what we study and practice for. Take a piece, slap some wax or white out on it, lay it out with pencil and engrave a professional looking design. well done.

Jim

I think that is superb work
I wish you lived near me as I'd love to have some of my work engraved by you.
Really well done

Chris

Very nice
The customer got a deal

That Black on a Black knife sure looks great. I really like the stars, are there any easy ways to draw a five point star like that, or do you just get one off your computer and transfer the size you need?

soj, this is a template I bought from grs and that's what I used. I think templates are great and I have many I use for engraving and jewelry work.
Jeff

Jeff,
Really nice work. It amazes how fast you are progressing with your engraving. Well done.

Stewart

Great Work Jeff!

Just beautiful. One of these days I am going to take a break from my practicing and engrave one of my knives. I just hope it turnes out even half as good as that.

Good Idea on the template, thanks Jeff. I really like that knife.

Heck Mack,

Hit the cheap tool store or the flea market and pick up a $5 knife to practice on. If it comes out bad, it's still a cheap knife you can use to open boxes.

If it comes out nice you've got a good 'guy gift' - and the confidence to move on to a better knife.