Mandala: Fury Road

Continuing my exploration of different ways to decorate mandalas. I’ll give away the secret in a minute, see if you can figure figure out what I did here.

Previous installments here and here and here.

A few notes:

  • Start with flat materials. Warp is more of a pain to deal with than you might think at first.
  • Registration pins are also clutch, I use brass rods, but you can use dowels or what have you. I like the 1/16" brass because the holes are really small and easy to cover up.
  • After each cut, label the back of your layers with the layer number and orientation. It’ll help you assemble and get perfect alignment later.
  • Prepare to have lots of cutouts that you won’t want to throw out. They are cool shapes and colors, it’s kind of irresistable.
  • Overall size: 10.5 x 10.5 x 1", it’s 8 layers deep and cut from 1.8" baltic birch.

So, onto the color scheme. I wanted to get a color fade that rotated with each layer… it should have led to a low-contrast center with a flowing light yellow to red fade surround. There are probably lots of ways to do this, but I was shooting for precision and didn’t trust my color blending/painting skills.

I looked into a bunch of possibilities about how to do it and settled on something I am pretty pleased with myself on: custom printed cardstock. I made a bunch of gradient images at different angles and had them printed in color at the local fedex. I then followed the same glue-up and cut routine that I followed with my purple cardstock mandala before it. (Including the acrylic sealer at the end.)

Alignment was a bit of an issue, remember I was trying to get really accurate positioning, but that’s pretty easy to work out if you’ve ever done any kind of precision cutting before. I would say I probably got it to +/- 0.01" in both X and Y, with probably < 1 degree rotational accuracy. For this project that’s more than accurate enough.

Color reproduction is a bit lacking at the local fedex, this was the general concept I had in mind and I was open to a range of outcomes, no no big deal here. If color were important, I would probably spring for photo printing, but 16 12x12" photo prints that would not be cheap at fedex. Maybe purchased online would be better?

Oh and yes I said 16 prints. Get yourself extras, especially if this is your first time doing it. You’re bound to mess something up and have to recut at least one. (so I’ve heard, I didn’t screw up two layers, not me, nope. How dare you suggest that I would make a mistake…)

Anyway, I’m happy with the end result. The sky is the limit on color schemes with printed layers like this. I am not sure what I’ll do next, but if /when I do another mandala I’ll be sure to post it.

Also, if you wanted to give this a shot with off the shelf cardstocks, there are ombre cardstocks out there by bazzill but they are very hard to find – maybe they were a limited run?

Oh also also: I like the way this one looks at oblique angles more than I like the others at off angles. Not sure why, it’s just pleasing.

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Great explorations, keep it up!!!

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Thanks for putting in the work to get this result, and for the excellent write up. These are mesmerizing.

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Really great work! :heart_eyes: What are you planning for them? I am thinking about what all of them put together would look like. :heart_eyes:

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We’re on the same page! That’s my next photoshoot once the sun is out, but that’ll be about a week from now in ATL (ugh).

As for plans, these are largely proofs of concept. Three of them are good enough to give as gifts, so that’s probably their fate. One has a really small error that I doubt anyone would notice… but I know. I may keep that one.

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Stunning, as usual!

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Oh yes! Love the ombre effect!!!

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Great results! The mandalas are cool enough, but the color exploration takes them to the next level! I think the gradients are a payoff in your treasure hunt. :sunglasses:

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Looks fantastic! good stuff.

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Wow. Another fabulous piece of art.

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Love the effect. It’s always nice to see a number of variations on a theme. It makes for great ideas.

Spoiler Alert! Atlanta no longer has sunshine. Georgia is now The Mildew State.

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Not just Georgia :wink:

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Interesting how you name all your pieces.

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I started naming them after movie sequels with #3. Debated going back and updating the first two… actually I gotta do the second one now, it’s too good not to. Fury road is the 4th mad max movie, Bourne Ultimatium is the 3rd Bourne movie, and now Mandala 2: Electric Boogaloo. Maybe I should rename the first one as Mandala and the sorcerors stone? Mandala: a new hope? Open to suggestions.

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Mandala One

(Rogue…)

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Favorite one yet!

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It’s gorgeous!

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Damn dude, you’re rocking these. I’m not usually a huge mandala fan, but these are beautiful!

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Sell them on ETSY!!!

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very nice

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