By now, you have to expect weird questions from me.
I’m attempting to make a fan based on the style of Anglo-Saxon jewelry , think garnets mounted in gold filigree. Naturally, this style will be called FangloSaxon.
It will combine multiple layers, namely sublimation printed SubliDecal sheet, Unimount tissue with hot foil printed ‘gold’, all sandwiched onto either basswood or steamed pear veneer, then protected by a layer of laminating pouch mylar.
I’ve tested all the materials for chlorine, and all is safe.
Goldfinger is working well, but my current experiments are held up by a satisfactory ‘garnet’ fill for the stones in the design. I’d like to achieve a photo realistic effect making the fill variable in color, and possibly a suggestion of a vein in it.
Working in Inkscape, I’ve found various filters, and transparency controls, but nothing that gets me near what I’m looking for. Think blurred marble veining in grey behind a transparent dark red/purple.
If anyone can understand what I’m talking about, and can help move me forward, I’d be impressed, and grateful !
John
I have nothing to offer (other than to suggest you might have better luck with Gimp or Photoshop, which might be better suited to creating organic-type textures), but I would love to know how you are doing the hot foiling. Are you creating your own custom hot foil plates?
Hi Cynd,
The design of the ‘gilding’ is cut out, using the glowforge, from Unimount, which is a dry mounting tissue, designed for mounting photos originally.
I bought a roll of it from UK when I came over several years ago, and have finally found a use for it !
Placing the cut out pattern under a layer of hot foil, gold side up, I press the two at ~250F for 2-4 secs. Peel off the foil, and hey presto, a gold pattern with an adhesive back !
Garnet looks so many different ways, I’m wondering if you’ve settled on a specific look.
For example all of these are uncut garnets:
Generally the goal when cutting garnets is to get a clear dark one - so less dark veining - but if what you’re looking for is more like that lower right one (or last depending on how narrow your screen is) I’d suggest a smoke effect with a mid-range red overlay.
Here’s a quick walk-through of how you can do that in Inkscape
Something like this has the darkness mostly on the edges:
Which you could use the same effect, but focus it on the edges!
Fans must be a thing several of us are working on! I designed a very boring simple one back in November, but I need to find some thinner material for the outsides and spines, as the one I did is about an inch thick, and that’s without the fan part. So I can only imagine how thick it will be when I add fabric to it.
Hi Ellen,
I’m just starting to wonder if I should suggest a ‘Glowforge Owners Fan Club’.
Obviously the in-joke might be missed by a lot of readers, but I’d be only too happy to offer any help/advice I can to anyone on the subject.
