First design for a little knife

[FANCYGUN]

Now you are cooking.
I find this design much more exciting than the original one. It has some life to it and not as rigid. Now enlarge what you have and refine it.
Drawing is fun and theraputic. To doodle is devine.

Marty

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Buzzy for a while

Well, I think that finally I found a way to make a design.
I didn't post much in the last weeks, that because I was struggling how to make a design with enough detail on it that I can transfer with the Cirelly solution.

From FancyGun and Ron Smith I understood that using a pencil is essential.

The best way for me so far to make a design ready to engrave is like this:
- first I make several sketches in real size (I use a pencil HB 0,3mm and a magnification on the head of x2.5)
- Then I scan the best choice into my PC
- I open the sketch with Adobe Illustrator, I use my cheap Wacom pen and draw new lines on a new layer. For that I use the pencil tool with 14%smoothness. This way even my poor control on the Wacom tablet draws the lines like I want them, verry thin and smooth.
- All design so fare is done in real size, of course I use magnification on my PC screen.
- Then I print these vector lines two times real size.
- On these printed lines I start shading with a pencil, I can use my gum but the main lines remains.
- Now I have the main lines to transfer and engrave, and also the design for shading.

Perhaps my way sounds complicate, it is not and it works fast.
I also don't need to store all the papers.

Of course, when I become more used with engraving and especially the shading, I can perhaps skip the shading part on paper. But I'm not that far yet and I'm sure that a good result starts with a good plan.

Before I came to this result, I made more complicated design, engraved them on my old Zippo, and after that I realised that the scrolls were to complicated for the size they where meant for.

So I think sketching in real size gives a better idea of the final look.

Thanks you all for your your posts, I read them all to find my way in engraving.
I'm sure I learned a lot on design.
My next step on dsesign will be the Advanced Drawing of Scrolls by Ron Smith

If you have any comments please do.

Arnaud

 

[FANCYGUN]

Arnaud
I'm glad you are discovering the joys and benefits of sketching with a pencil. I find however after I have my sketch I only transfer the main lines and freehand cut the details. This way things don't get confusing on the metal and I can see what I am doing better. I also usually lightly scribe through the transfer and then remove it before cutting. This way once again I can see what I am actually doing. Of course keep the detailed drawing in front of you while you engrave for reference.
marty

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Marty, thanks for your replay, but of course I transfer only the main lines using a laserjet printer, transparant and the Cirelly solution.

The shaded design I use to look at while I do the shading. Perhaps later I can skip this part.

Arnaud

 

[KCSteve]

I can offer you one suggestion - if you go over your pencil sketch with ink before you scan you won't have to go over the scanned image. Took me a few iterations to figure that one out.

Pencil lines just don't have the high contrast of ink.

Looks like a good design and should be a fine looking lighter!

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

I can offer you one suggestion - if you go over your pencil sketch with ink before you scan you won't have to go over the scanned image. Took me a few iterations to figure that one out.

Pencil lines just don't have the high contrast of ink.

Looks like a good design and should be a fine looking lighter!

Thanks for the tip Steve, indeed a scanned pencil design is not good enough for transferring.
I'm sure ink will do the job, but so does Illustrator.
Once you found out a way to make designs to transfer, it is not obvious you change it. But as I'm new, and having high skills with photoshop and illustrator, I don't see a reason why I should not use these skills.

And sure, the best engravers here on the Engravers Café started long before the introducing of the PC.

I'm sure I found my way to make designs like I have them in my head, and I start with a pencil and paper.

I also found out that the design is not the final step, it is the engraving.

I want to notice that this design is not for my lighter, I only use my lighter to practice on, because I don't have practice plates. And even my own practising engravings on my Zippo makes my Zippo more beautiful.

Here again the KNIFE I'm working on. The engraving is only 10mm x 13mm

Arnaud

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Here some pictures of my Zippo, as you can see, the engravings on the sides showed me that on that size to much detail is worthless.
The one on top is more balanced I think and better to use for the little knife.

I will practice the final design first before I engrave it on the knife.


arnaud

 

[FANCYGUN]

Now you can understand why you do things differently depending on the full scale of the engraving Arnaud. Drawing with a pencil helps you visualized this. Now you're growing

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

understanding scrolls by Andrew's tutorial

I think scrolls are becoming more clear to me.
Monday I will order "Advanced Drawing of Scrolls by Ron Smith" and I'm sure scrolls will become more clear.

I used Andrew's tutorial "How to draw for beginners"

This is a huge progress in my design I think.

First I did the basic scrolls in real size, then I putted the leaves on it on double size. I did the shading as well, because this way the design is more clear to me.

I did already two different leafs on the same basic scrolls.
I show you these , the thumbs on real size, and the finals double size.

And sure, drawing with the pencil is fun.
As always, any comment is welcome

Arnaud

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Hi Arnaud

Glad to be of help

That is a huge jump that you've made right there. That is also some very nice shading you have as well.

There is only one thing I would say, and this is entirley my own personal opinion, your originating scroll (bottom) is larger than your top scroll. Generaly the growth point is smaller. A bit like a tree with the trunck at the bottom and all the branches at the top.

Well done!!

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Thank you Andrew, indeed I see it now, especially in the second design, the scroll in the middle is quite to thin. ( or is this a matter of shading different?)

But that is why I'm showing it to all of you, most of the time I sleep one night and look at my work again to find the minus.

This café of course helps even more than one night sleep.

Arnaud

 

[Mack]

Carl, I have some I can send you. I get them from my local lumber supply they are not the flat carpenter pencils either, just really hard lead regular pencils they have for working with wood. Let me know. Mack

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Carl, I have some I can send you. I get them from my local lumber supply they are not the flat carpenter pencils either, just really hard lead regular pencils they have for working with wood. Let me know. Mack

Wrong Topic Mack?
Or is my English that bad I don't understand?

Arnaud

 

[Ron Smith]

More tips:

Arnaud, I draw on tracing paper. My purpose for this is I can do some first impression ideas on the frst side, turn the paper over. I can still see my original. I make corrections on the back side, then turn the drawing over again and erase the original ideas. I make corrections on that side and repeat the process until I have a very precise drawing. I then outline it with a soft lead pencil for good definition. Draw lightly at first with a harder lead so that you don't smudge the drawing trying to erase a soft lead. I then always blacken in the background areas. This will expose flaws in spacing, rythum, balance and such.

The tracing paper technique is also great for symmetrical designs. I fold the paper, draw on one fold, turn the paper and trace the design onto the other fold and when I unfold it, I have a symmetrical design. I then go through the same process as before to refine it and perfect it. Then blacken it in for last evaluation.

This is quite fun, stimulating, and surprising sometimes when you unfold the half design and see the whole design together. Try it, You'll like it.

Ron S

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Ron, totally clear to me what you suggest. I suppose this tip is also in your book.
I sure will give it a try. Sounds like music,

I use a pencil 0,5mm H6 and a 0,3mm HB, good enough?

arnaud

 

[Ron Smith]

I use a drafting pencil that you can get a needle sharp point, hard lead, and an .03 pentelle for dark lines with soft lead.

I think I did mention it in my book, but if I didn't, I have mentioned it in some of my other writings, pamphlets, lesson plans, etc........it works for me.

Ron S

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Id did some practice on my design tot see if it will work and how I will be doing the shading.

Remember, the size if this for the knife is only 10mmX14mm.
comments are welcome as always.

I didn't use ink ore whatever to blacken to take the photo, and it sure is hard to make a sharp photo and to show the right tones of the shading

arnaud

 

[Roger Bleile]

Arnaud,

Très impressionnant ! The thumbnail looks like a relief carving which is exactly what we seek to achieve with shading.

Roger

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

I can finish this tread

Thanks Roger,

I have finished my first little knife, but as I was busy engraving I realised the metal I was engraving was not the metal I thought it was.
Of course it is a cheap knife 25euro), but the part I engraved is not brass like I thought.
So I'm a little disappointed because I did a lot of work to make it look nice.

I will not use the knife, only put it in my window to show it al an example. If the metal would have been al little harder, the shading would have been easier. What the metal is I don't know, but sure it is softer than silver.
I'm glad I can finish this tread, next time I want at least steel to engrave.

All comments are welcome

 

[Leonardo]

Hi Arnaud!

That little knife looks really nice. Congrats! Have you engraved both sides?

I know Umarex Sportwaffen and they nice CO2 guns replicas since many years but did not know about the knives. By the way, although I like the Umarex CO2 airguns I LOVE my Walther CPM1 many many more!

Cheers, Leonardo.