I did. There was a wrinkle in the masking at that point. good eye
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I can’t wait to see what you do with this! Nice A/B on extruded/cast, too. Nothing wrong with using extruded as far as I’m aware, it just doesn’t turn out as well, as you point out.
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What type of shop do they market themselves as? I’m not really sure what to look for, but would love to get my hands on some scraps like that 
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I would try sign shops and plastic fabricators
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@takitus hmm i wonder if there’s a market for colored versions of those engraves (e.g., clear / red, clear / blue, etc.)? with something rubbed into the negative spaces you might have a nice looking product out of extruded with a lower cost to make.
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It’s my friends art (minus the stargate), and he’s already monetizing it pretty well. He had a mold made so he’s made resin casts etc.
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yeah, i assumed it wasn’t your design. i meant the process itself, using a cheaper acrylic to offer a good product.
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He actually freaked when he saw the selectively weeded stained engrave. He loved it, so that might be an option, but he has a laser cutter, so I just told him how it works. It took a long time to weed though…so… who knows haha
You cant see it so well in the photos, but up close the extruded just looks sloppy. the acrylic fogs along the edges of the engraves, its warped, and the engraves arent crisp. to be honest, the extruded costs me about the same as the cast acrylic does. I only keep it around for window type pieces.
I have done quite a few pieces with the background spray painted. They do look pretty awesome. …
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That’s been my experience. It’s just not worth it to mess with extruded from my perspective. I know cast will always work and extruded will sometimes work. No real value to take the sometime route and find out that for that specific project it doesn’t and then have to do it all over again. I also think extruded smells worse 
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Definitely
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loved his work. Had to bookmark his sight. several good gift ideas.
Check this out:
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Such cool colors…I love how acrylic looks like clear ice
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BTW, you can turn clear acrylic into frosted acrylic by lightly sanding or using Krylon’s Privacy Glass spray. The more coats the more opaque it becomes.
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The wood version is epic! Really great design and work. Even the soot adds a lot of depth and shading. (Love this so much that it goes into my special “inspiration” file )
Do I understand correctly that you left masking on the white/light areas? Do you have to seal the masking at all? I love the effect and contrast, but wonder how well it’ll hold up over the years. Another way to get the effect would be to use this paint technique developed by Diego Scaglia Rat. He does great stuff with acrylic.
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Thank you! I did leave the masking on some areas, but it’s actually the dark areas. The light is where I peeled the masking off. In this piece the masking absorbed the soot, so it darkened a bit.
I have done some other engraves where the lightest part of the photo was the masking. These are all just for fun though. Some of the older ones with the light area masking are starting to fade with time.
I’ve been playing with paint a bit to get some cool effects, and better longevity, but not in the same way as Diego. His stuff is pretty cool though. As soon as the whole visual accuracy alignment stuff gets easier I’m going to give that style a try as well.
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Aww gotcha, I had it backwards! Very cool effect Takitus.
You may already know, but for those interested in how Diego does it…
From what I understand Diego does a very light vector etch of his design to get a pattern to follow. He then adds the blocks of acrylic paint. I think he may use a jig for alignment to place the piece back in the laser for the final etching. He then coats the final product with polyurethane(?) or something similar. It’s been about the best technique I’ve seen for a clean look.
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