Halloween trinkets

I’ve been playing around and making pieces for a ghoulish Halloween triptych. I’m liking the ones with black paint as they really look ancient. The white paint is pretty nice though, looks just like the PF masking :slight_smile: I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t leave any material uncut and I jam-pack a bunch of little doodads into all the empty spaces when I set up a print. I have a billion little things laying all over the house now lol.

These are probably my favorite. Of course, they were test cuts and off size. Nice stand alone pieces though.

Positive and negative renditions for the triptych. Now I just have to pick my favorites.

Painted white before cutting

All my doodads and space fillers. (The skulls, keyhole and black moon were painted first, then cut.) The key hole is especailly beautiful and I’ll have to come up with a project for that file. And man, the GF did such an awesome job with that tiny skull!

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Love the keyhole … really there is so much to love. Those skulls are amazing!

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I think you could teach a class in Glowforge file prep for photo engraving. Seriously, these engravings are outstanding!

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I generally appreciate this type of subject, but don’t care much for it. These, however, are freaking awesome!!!

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So cool! Where did you find the pictures?

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I just scour for hours and hours online :slight_smile: More than any one place to look, I think it’s more about knowing what to search for. I love the engravings from the 1600 in particular and here are some of my favorite artists to search for:
Pietro Paolo Palumbo
Cornelis Anthonisz
Philips Galle
Francis Quarles

It really helps to search in foreign online museum collections as well. This is a good one.

Another good search term is “emblemata”. That one will send you down the search rabbit hole for hours lol
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Beautiful stuff! That black painted Dance, love it.

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Thank you! I’ll return the favor: check out Giovanni Piranesi. Beautiful architectural etchings.

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This style has always looked amazing to me, do you mind sharing the technique for painting these? Is it literally just painting the detail after the fact, or are you masking and painting somehow. I’m afraid if this is just pure artistic skill I am out of luck. ha.

No skill at all! I just painted to wood prior to cutting,engraving and that’s it. The weathered texture look comes mostly from the background files. I adjusted them so the backgrounds wouldn’t engrave that deep and take away al the black. After printing, I used a little sandpaper on the skeletons to highlight them a bit. If your image has no background to create texture, you could achieve the same weathered look with sandpaper.

On the keyhole and little skulls I just painted the wood white before putting in the GF and didn’t have to do anything else to them.

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Awesome I am going to have to experiment.

In that same vein, anyone know if any particular paints are not laser friendly?

What kind of paint did you use before cutting?

I used Krylon “short cuts” spray paint. I researched the ingredients for laser compatibility, but I am not expert by a long shot. Don’t take my word for it :slight_smile:

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Some Paint that is used on metal have metal patricals in them so I gues there not save to use.