Document the failures as well as the wins is something I started doing last week, had a card setup that didn’t go as planned because I’m dealing with a variety of variables and I hadn’t dialed in my settings yet.
Well… here’s the win
The background: I got a hundred anodized aluminum business cards that had of a variety of color, unfortunately except for black and blue most of them have issues handling color they aren’t the same size, nor are they consistent in the layering they received.
In an attempt to still be able to use the cards that I purchased I’m trying something different.
A couple days ago I posted on my FB wall the first attempt at a new process I was playing with. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t what I had in my head either. So I went back to the drawing board, change a few things, tested it again, learn somethings, change something else…And now I’ve got it.
Colored anodized aluminum, coated in matte acrylic black, engraved in multiple passes, and finished with a clear coat. Instead of fighting with how inconsistent some of these colored cards can be, I’m basically using the color underneath as part of the artwork itself.
That blue isn’t printed or painted on. That’s the original blue card showing through the black finish.
Failure isn’t wasted material if you learned something from it. Now I just need to see how many colors I can make this work with… 
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Definitely check out @shogun’s work with multilayer painted canvas. He did lots of cool things with it.
https://community.glowforge.com/search?q=%40shogun%20paint%20canvas%20in%3Afirst
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That eyeball is insane! I love it.
Did you layer white in there as well, or is just the contrast that makes it look white/light blue?
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Nope, the base card is blue and the underlaying is technically a silverish white so if it digs in it ends up giving a whitish vibe to it
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Most aluminum tends to engrave that sort of white. These cards are really cool.
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Whoa, those are FAILURES??? They are freaking awesome!
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Well no, they are the results of pushing myself past the failures. I’ve been doing a little bit of a series on my FB page called Documenting wins and failures, to show that it’s not perfection every time
This was the first run attempting this process, the normal card went fine-ish but the painted layered one didn’t go very well. And so I tweaked the process, learned from it, and made the other cards I mentioned already 
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My guess is they are anodized aluminum cards: The substrate is the natural silver whiteish color of pure aluminum, the anodized color is a micron thick dye chemical oxide treatment integrated on the surface (blue, red, etc), and the added black matte coat serves as a mask, and all three give you a palette of 3 colors that reveal depending of the intensity of the engrave. The stronger the engrave, the deeper you vaporize the two top layers, exposing the substrate, the dye or the black mask.
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Sounds like. The depth that @techquest89 has achieved with just 3 colours is wild. If I painted that I’d be mixing so many shades.
Lasers are cool.
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As Bob Ross would say “We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents”.
Your exploratory journey is interesting and also inspiring. Thanks for sharing @techquest89!
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