The magic of color!

The name plaques are amazing as dimensional pieces, fresh off the MultiCam but as we apply the paint, glazes and gilding they become spectacular. Becke did the bulk of the painting on this year's workshop plaques and after so many years of applying her magic touch she has become a master carts man at the task. I'll briefly describe the techniques she used for each attendees plaque. All plaques first got a hand brushed Coastal Enterprises waterbed primer hand brushed on to achieve a subtle texture coat. This texture coat gives the glazes a much more pleasing effect and also makes the metallic paints and gilding sparkle. 

Bailee's plaque started out with three coats of light blue - all painted by hand. Then a medium blue glaze was applied followed by a navy blue shade of blue glaze. The lettering was painted with Modern Masters metallic gold.

Caitlyn's plaque received three coats of light tan, followed by a medium brown glaze and finally a glaze we call 'Sawatzky brown.' It is a custom brown which has a little purple in it. The lettering is a two color blend of a lime and apple trees - both Modern Masters metallic acrylic paints.

Cam;s plaque was painted with three shades of Modern Masters metallic greens. The outside border received a silver metallic. Becke mixed up two colors of glaze, the first we call 'swamp' and the second is a dark brown. The lettering was gilded with a red variegated gold.

Joel's plaque started with three coats of tan. Then a medium glaze was applied. Next the outside border received two coats of Modern Masters metallic gold. A 'Sawatzky brown' glaze was then applied over the entire name plaque. Then Becke painted the metallic blue on the letters followed by a dry brush blend of a lighter shade to make the prismatic lettering really jump.

Kenna's name plaque received a blended base coat of medium blue and a shade of teal over the entire surface. Then a dark brown glaze. The domed lettering got its double coat of a warm white for maximum impact.

Laura's name plaque received two coats of reactive metallic iron paint before it got a shot of acid to make it rust. Becke applies a second coat of the mild acid to get the green patina on the background where it puddled. She then clear coated the letter outline as well as the letters. This darkened that area slightly to make the lettering stand out a little more. It also sealed the area making sure the rust paint didn't bleed through to the lettering top coat. The lettering was painted with a custom blended coat of metallic silver( with a little green blended in) down to a light metallic purple.

Nancy's plaque started out with three coats of mauve followed by a dark brown glaze. Then the metallic gold was applied to the outside border. The lettering was then sized and leafed with red variegated gold.

Steve's plaque was first painted with three coats of metallic gold. The last coat has a subtle blend of three colors of gold with the lightest being on the top and fading down. The tops of the plaque is a solid shade of gold. The inside of the sunken letters then were painted a very dark shade of brown.

Stay tuned for the next batch...

Cam

Cam is a returning workshop attendee. Last time I made him a riveted 'metal' panel. Cam is an engineer (among many other things) and so I decided to make him something techy this go around. The panel is relatively simple but I used a couple of tricks to add more dimension. I drew the piece entirely in EnRoute. The outside shape is a rectangle and circle combined. I first created a flat relief.

Then I dropped the centre portion using the subtract from command. I dropped it 1/4" to allow for the texture to be added inside this area.

The texture I used provided the tech theme. It is a simple black and white texture. The black areas would stay low while the white would raise up by the .15" I specified. This meant the top of the texture was still 0.1" below the border.

I then applied the 'SPLOTCHES' texture with a value of 0.1".  This would bring the background up to the border where the image was white and slightly below where it was darker.

I wanted to create a bump in the middle of the panel so I used the circle vector as a mask to define the area to be raised. I used the dome tool but kept things very subtle.

Then it was time to create the lettering border. This would eventually follow that same dome shape of the base relief but first I created a separate flat relief.

Then I used the larger circle to modify this base relief using the dome tool.

Then I went to the front view to check things out. I found that the edges of the lettering outline were touching into the background. It was a simple matter of selecting this lettering outline relief and then nudging it upwards using the up arrow keys on my keyboard.

Once I was happy it was time to merge (highest) the lettering outline with the base relief.

The last step was to modify the relief by adding the bevelled letters. I used the constant height function to better manage the areas where the bevels came together.

Joel

It's both challenging and fun to come up with a different name plaque for every attendee of our workshops. While there are some that are somewhat similar there have been well over two hundred original name plaques created so far. creating the name plaques has been a great exercise that sharpens my skills as a designer and using EnRoute. We also use the name plaques to come up with new new painting techniques. We've learned lots along the way.

Joel's name plaque was next. With only four letters it begged to have a creative layout. Stacking the letters to create a square shape looked good too me.

The file was created totally in EnRoute.  The letters were modified to make them fit together properly. I shortened the horizontal strokes of the 'E' and 'L' to make them be the same combined width as the 'J' and the 'O'.  Once the vectors were in place I created a base relief using the dome tool.

Then I added a subtle texture over the entire relief using the 'SPLOTCHES' bitmap.

Then I used the subtract tool to drop the centre of the square base relief.

I then dropped the centre square one more time.

Then I raised the lettering border by modifying the base relief and the 'add to' function.

Then it was time to add a little more texture - this time the sandblasted wood (vertical) bitmap was used. You can see I stretched it out to cover the entire centre portion.

Then I used the bevel tool to add the lettering by modifying the base relief. note I used the contant heights the bevelled corners looked a little better.

The last step was to add the rivets around the edge using the dome tool.

The piece was routed from 1.5" thick 30 lb Precision Board for perfect results.

Steve

For the next name plaque I wanted to achieve the look of a cast manhole cover. EnRoute's drawing tools made this effect very easy. I first drew a long vertical rectangle and then used the duplication tool to make copies and space them perfectly. I duplicated the multiple rectangles, rotated them 90 degrees and placed them over the vertical ones. Then I used the combine tool. This created the perfectly spaced squares which I would use a little later. 

I then built the rest of the vectors (except the lettering)and centered the squares over the round shape. I then used the jigsaw tool to create the final vectors. I deleted the original vectors so there weren't duplicates. The lettering was then added.

I then created the base relief using the dome tool. Note the outer circle vector. This was only used as a modification tool.

I then used the subtract tool to drop the centre of the relief down.

The lettering outline and the two bolts were built as separate flat reliefs.

These flat reliefs were then modified using the dome tool and that outside vector I mentioned previously.

I then went to the front view to see where that new relief ended up in relation to the base relief vertically. The first arrow indicates where the lettering border ended up. The second arrow indicates where I want it to be. I then used the up arrow key to nudge it into position vertically.

Once I was happy it was time to merge the lettering outline and the bolt heads to the base relief. (MERGE HIGHEST)

To make this plaque a little different from all the rest I dropped the letters into the lettering border. This should paint up real cool.

I then checked the rendering to make sure I ended up with what I had in mind. It looked good and so it was ready to tool path and send off to the router.

Caitlyn

Caitlyn's name plaque was next up. The typestyle I picked had some pretty sharp and thin ends. If the letters are routed this way the letters become pretty fragile.

The solution is to thicken the tips up. For me the quickest way to do it is to draw new ends and then merge these new shapes with the letter vectors.

 Once the thin ends were fixed the font still looked a little stiff. I wanted it to look like it was hand drawn.

I then used the distort transform tool to warp the letters.

Once I was happy with the letters I added the border. At this point I was still thinking of a rectangular name plaque with rounded corners. But as I looked over the vectors I loved the casual script but the formal shape of the plaque no longer worked.

I decided a piece of driftwood would work better. I imported the driftwood bitmap and hand drew the outline. Then I used the dome tool to create a relief.

Once the relief was in place I applied the bitmap.

Then I used the hand sculpting tool to put some grooves in the driftwood.

The next step was to create the lettering border. I made it a new flat relief. I next wanted to make this relief rounded to the same profile as the driftwood board. To do this I created an oval of roughly the same size as the board.

I then used this oval to modify the flat relief using the dome tool with the same angle on the dome as I used to create the driftwood board background.

I then went into the front view and nudged it into place using the up/down keys.

Once I was happy with the vertical placement it was time to merge highest with the base relief.

The last step was to modify the base relief by adding the bevelled letters.

Then it was time to tool path and send off to the MultiCam.