A friend of mine recently suffered a heart attack that nearly took his life. He is middle aged and this was very unexpected. Shortly after recovering from surgery he sketched a grim reaper with the title “Reaper Cheater” which he posted on Facebook. I snagged the image and did some etchings and promptly sent them to him as a surprise gift.
After further refinement of his sketch brought it into Corel Draw and created a vector version. Armed with this high quality vector file I wanted to take another attempt on the laser, this time an edge lit acrylic display. I was not totally satisfied with the first attempt in clear acrylic. There is a lot going on and I don’t think I provided enough contrast in the various fills and strokes.
After some enhancements, the next attempt I decided to see how it would look etched on the back of some mirrored acrylic.
I am quite happy with this version. It is hard to pickup in a photo, but the light fill color in the letters and blade made a speckle pattern that looks like a star field making a surprisingly nice effect in person.
Since I had the design file ready to go, I decided to make a couple more engravings to send with the package.
I’ve always been a critic of those using terrible fonts that you can’t read quickly. Love the outlined letters. It adds a crispness that allows you to enjoy the rest of the artwork instead of trying to decipher the words. Quite well done!
One trick I learned for Clear cast acrylic is to barely etch the surface making a frost instead of etching deep into the acrylic.
IMO it looks nicer lit up than the deep etch with shadows
A Ham callsign sign I did…ignore the scratches since its a sample that travels to shows it got dropped a few times…lol
