Gary's panel for the Sign Magic Workshop stumped me for a bit. He is traveling from central California and I decided on a classic 'gold rush' feel to the panel. I dug out a decorative element from the David Butler Gold collection and used parts of it in the vector design. The lettering has that same gold rush feel.
The letting would be deeply bevelled with some 'sandblasted' woodgrain behind. I used a woodgrain bitmap from my collection to achieve that look. The file was much larger than I needed (as often happens. The area in the dotted red lines was the tiny portion used for this project.
The panel looks complex and difficult but is actually really simple. Once I had all the relief elements created and then positioned vertically to my satisfaction I then merged everything together to make the final relief.
This was tool pathed using a 3/8" ball nose bit with a 1/8" ball nose for the final pass. Then it was sent to the MultiCam to make my imagined piece real in well under an hour from start to finish. I have one more panel to go before I break out the primer and paint...
-dan
