Help, please: odd space to design for

I'm not asking anyone to DO this for me, but this is a large, strange shape to engrave and I really need help in what to do! This is a large shoulder plane, 7" by 2.5"
Thanks for giving me a clue!

Do I see screw heads in there? Looks like an excellant place to orignate scrolls from, and obviousy you would have multiple origination points so a number of self-orginating scrolls in the pattern.

when you eat out in a restaurant, you will do you best design work on a napkin for this. trace the outline on paper,scan and print.you'll surprize yourself with the inspiration you come up with in your favorite eatery.

ok- with self starting scrolls you would get ctossings, I presume- do the scrolls alternate up and down as they usually would as they move across the surface?

Crossovers are not mandantory, only if they need to be there for space reasons would I use them.

By Alternating up and down, do mean do they have flow correctly? Of course since you would have more than origination point, you will several differnt direction flows to worry about, but all must flow (or grow) in the same direction as they leave their unique origination point.

you will several differnt direction flows to worry about, but all must flow (or grow) in the same direction as they leave their unique origination point

You've lost me here...

Celtic knots

This space is calling for Celtic knots or trifoils.
J. T.

Dragon, head, pointy ear and sharp beard on the left, long neck with strongly defined vertebrae, legs/feet and scrunched down body on the right.

Oh hey Gargoyle!

That sounds cool - scrolling back up to the look at the thumbnail it's easy to picture the beast, taloned feet in that little spot on the bottom, tail curling up to the upper right, great horned head near the upper left...

I see two groups of Samurai opposing each other on opposite sides of a stone bridge.

Hi Cloudy

You sure have picked a very awkward and challenging shape to work with

A couple of things to consider are..............

How prominent are the screws going to be? By the looks of it they are fairly much fused into the surface. (or that could be the photo) and get the work going from the back of the plane to the front so it all flows in the correct way.

You have a few options and it's really just a matter of playing with it till something works.

The first is ignore all the screws and grow a scroll (s) from one end of the plane to the other maybe coming off the border.

The second is take a screw (eg: the bottom right screw) and start a scroll from that and then have everything come off that scroll. Then you would just ignore all the other screws and go right over the top of them.

The third is to utilize all the screws which would be extremely hard to do.

The fourth is to make a nice running border around the whole plane and then have your scroll work coming off that.

You could have quite large scrolls to fill the area quickly.............but there is a price to pay for that. While you will save a bit of time with the initial cutting, your shading will have to be a lot more intense. Larger scrolls also have to be done exactly right or any kinks etc stick out like dogs balls............Smaller scrolls will disguise any major stuff ups.

Another thought is to do some nice border and scrolls....and maybe include a scene of some wood working tools like a plane, chisels, carpenters rule. Sort of like Masonic type tools. That would not be hard to do as they are all straight line objects and you wouldn't need a lot of detail to make them look good..............you are more than capable of doing something like that and it would also extend your skills.

When you start drawing just work with loose shapes and concepts first, basically doodles. Then you will see how it all starts working and you can then start getting a bit better idea of how it will all fit.

Cheers
Andrew

Slick suggestions! Thanks! And I did NOT choose this shape, lol! Have to learn to deal with whatever is presented, right?!

what you came up with looks very nice. a help for you may be to just draw random odd shapes, then practice drawing scroll in those shapes. that's a good way to get comfortable doing this. keep your drawings in a notebook, or scan and park em in your computer. it serves to show your progress over time.