hard lines

[didyoung]

here is a faint outline of what i want to engrave,(cowboy roping a steer).
my question is???
should the outline of this picture be a hard line(solid black line)?
if so i will shade from the inside to the hard line?
this may be the dumbest question i have asked yet
i am trying to stay away from the coloring book look.....:thinking:
shawn

 

[RoycroftRon]

Outlining will definitely put it into that cartoon category. Real objects do not have lines around them. The line we perceive is the contrast in value.

 

[SamW]

It would depend on what you intend to do with the surrounding/background areas.

 

[didyoung]

some progress.
no coloring book look yet:clapping:

 

[Ray Cover]

It also comes down to a matter of degrees. I outline a lot of my images but most very lightly. I'm not outlining heavily because of the effect Ron is talking about. That being said I only do this on hard edge surfaces. For example, I may outline an eye very lightly or the outer edge of a face but never a soft edge like around a nose on a straight on portrait. WHen I outline like this its very light and I do it for reference. Having those hard edge areas referenced makes it faster (for me anyway) to finish out the image.

Now you ask why not just scribe that outline? Well the short answer is I can cut that reference outline much more accurately than I can scribe it. Granted, this may not be the technically correct way to do it but its how a self taught hillbilly worked out hwo to do it.

Ray

 

[rod]

Shawn,

The start you have made is looking very nice, and works for me.

If that piece of silver is going out to the rough and tumble of real life, I would say that the bulino style horseman might not last very long on a soft silver surface, but as a display item I like silver bulino mixed in with western bright cut!

best

Rod

 

[didyoung]

well we will all have to wait a bit to see if this is worth keeping or it goes into the junk pile.
thanks for your thoughts. i will try to use them .

 

[DiamondCactus]

Is it going to be a horn cap or a canal piece, or am I not even close? No matter where it is going to go I would definitely own it and sport it proudly, Nice work.

 

[diandwill]

As was said, if it is a hard wear piece, the Bulino will probably not last. You can do an overlay of thin metal, brass or even karat gold (it won't be thick so won't add excessive value) and do more of a sculpting in the contrasting metal, rather than the bulino. Should provide years of hard wear while making the piece even more striking!
If you decide to throw it in the scrap pile, I am sure there are many that would consider it expensive scrap and treat it as such. It's worth more than it's weight in Silver!

 

[didyoung]

so with bulino i see that you have to find a sweet spot of light to be able to view it and see all the work that you have put into the object.
should a person remove the background?
or texture the background?