Michelle Ignacz: Week 11 Laser Engrave

For the concept of my laser engraving project, I wanted to import in one of my older drawings that I had previously not finished and finish it out in Photoshop and then shade it for the engraving so that it would add more depth to it instead of a flat 2D concept on the material I later chose to do on.
When it comes to the material for it, I was thinking of using either wood or perhaps a piece of tile to help give it more of an artistic flair due to the different grains of material inside of the tile. I do plan on experimenting with the material choice due to the fact that I have a very deep appreciation to texture choices and feel of a piece.
When coming to actually creating the rastor/engraving of the image I choose, I first scanned in the original photo I had and went back over it all in Photoshop, creating an outline of the object so that the laser would have something clean to cut out. After this, I applied a type of background and a shadow underneath the model to help give it the faux 3-D look so that way it did not seem to be slapped right onto the surface and to give it a type of lift. Once I was finished with that, I went back over with different greyscales to help make it pop even more efficiently in its 2D space. I finished the file and then converted it into an .ai file so that the work done would become vectors and that better suited for the engraving machine.

Original Concept

Engraving Concept 01

Engraving Concept 02

Updated: So with the final work, I engraved my work on a 1/4" sheet of plywood and then went over it with acrylic paint to have the details pop since the original engraving was too dark on the wood. With the paint I was able to pull out all of the details seen in Concept 01 above. 

 View 01

View 02