My good friend (and evil twin) is a craft blogger and illustrator, and she’s graciously allowing me to use some of her patterns in my work. Some day, I hope to create really fun designs with her mandalas - but for now, I’m just fumbling around and learning what this machine can do.
Thought I’d share a few of these experiments, which are just testers/WIP’s. I’m just exploring different materials, sizes, settings and (next) coloration techniques.
My first attempt was this little bat mandala, done on a random scrap of leather. It measures 3.5" around, and it taught me that I don’t want to deal with projects that require so much tiny weeding. Also, settings were not dialed in so well:
For attempt #2, I used proof grade leather and got the settings down a bit better. This one measures 2.5"(note that there’s still a bit of teeny weeny weeding to clean up here):
These two are engraved on proof grade maple, and they’re respectively 3.25" and 4" around. There’s still a little bit of weeding to finish up, but I think they turned out nicely:
Those designs are really nice. Sometimes for the detail photos it’s easy to lose perspective of how small and detailed some of the engravings are. Those turned out great.
