The Mayan Calendar "Bulino style"

[henningssom]

This is my first real attempt with Bulino style engraving.
I would really like to hear your comments.
The scene is about 3x1 inch big and is suppose to look like The Mayan Calendar. It has taken me approximately 400 hours.
I don’t know if that is because I`m new at Bulino or if this is common for this type of engravings. There is about 60 000 to 100 000 dpi.
I did the outline and background removal with my air unit.
I wanted to get a ruff appearance because the original Mayan Calendar is hacked out of stone.
I will post some close ups later.

Mike

 

[mdengraver]

Love it! I love Mayan glyphs as an artform.

 

[Haraga.com]

That's cool.

 

[Eugene Carkoski]

Wonderful work,

 

[didyoung]

very nice.....i hope to be able to do a job like that someday.
you do great work.
400 hours.... the last pend, i did took me 6 hours.
i am going to have to quit my real job if i want to become a real engraver.:thinking:

 

[Beathard]

Very nice work. Bulino does take awhile, but 400 hours? Wow... At $75-100 per hour that makes the knife have $30000-40000 in labor alone! Adding the cost of the knife, would anyone pay that much? At minimum wage it's almost $3000. Your work is no where near minimum wage. I just expressed this as a floor price. So the question is: what price will the market bear for a beautiful piece of art like this?

 

[henningssom]

Thank you all for your nice comments.

Here I got some close ups for you.
henningssonknives.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/mayan-calender-close-up-1.jpg?w=1024

henningssonknives.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/close-up-2.jpg?w=1024

Mike

 

[henningssom]

So that didn’t work.
I`ll try again

 

[henningssom]

Try to get the pictures bigger for you.

 

[Beathard]

Love the close ups. Shows the delicate shading.

 

[henningssom]

Love the close ups. Shows the delicate shading.

Beathard,

Thank you.
About the hours. This is the first Bulino I am doing so I do not have any reference for how long it should take but I have to admit it took quite a while.
I have also done the knife, I started out by making knives and now have moved on to engravings too so I am still in the learning curve.
Price, no I will never get what I want for the knife but that’s life.
Mike

 

[monk]

simply an amazing work to be proud of !

 

[thughes]

Mike, that is awsome. Unbelievable first attempt, or second, or tenth.

 

[mdengraver]

Nice engraving but my friend says "That's a nice job of engraving, but what is shown is copied from the Aztec Sunstone, and is not Maya.

The Maya have many calendars, all running concurrently, but this is not one of them"

 

[Christian DeCamillis]

Using the line technique mixed with dots would make a big difference in the time it takes.

Chris

 

[mdengraver]

Aztec Sunstone

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=aztec+sunstone&qpvt=aztec+sunstone&FORM=IGRE

 

[John P. Anderson]

Super nice work. My relief carving takes a lot of time compared to other styles of engraving. I saw a bracelet Diane Scalese carved inside and out. Bright cut on the inside and traditional scroll work on the outside. She said the outside took 5 times as long to complete as the inside bright cut.

I notice I'm getting faster at what I do. I'm slow but I like the results. I can lay out 4-5 pieces of jewelry in front of someone and they will immediately go to the piece I put the most time into creating.

Thanks for sharing the details.

John

 

[rod]

Mike,

It is the Aztec sun stone, I used to live on the same street in Mexico City as the museum that now houses it.

Regardless, this is a major piece of top flight cutting. You took a big change in using this knife as the start of your bulino self training, clearly, you made it work, so congratulations!

Rod

 

[RDP]

Mike,

It is the Aztec sun stone, I used to live on the same street in Mexico City as the museum that now houses it.

Somebody better tell Mr. Google images, the same comes up for Mayan and Aztecs calendars, ,

excellent work either way,

Richard.

 

[mrthe]

Beautyful work! a lot of hours but the reult is super!