We needed one more sign for a key area in the Fox and Hounds Pub. The sign wouldn't be large, measuring about 30 inches tall at most but it needed to shout out. We toyed with a multitude of ideas and I filled my sketchbook with ideas but nothing clicked. The owner of the pub had asked for a sign that featured whiskey and was very British. Yesterday I typed pub signs into google, looking for inspiration. I didn't see anything I liked but I did get an idea. Town criers dated back to the 1500's. I did a quick sketch and knew this was the perfect idea.
The idea I had scribbled needed a lot of work. Then I remembered a drawing I had done more than twenty years ago. It had been sitting on my bulletin board just waiting for it's day to shine.
I pulled it into PhotoShop and cut, pasted, morphed, stretched and tweaked until I had what I wanted. I then redrew the town crier adding a hand with a bell, a tricorne hat, a powdered wig and a ruffled shirt. It made me laugh while I covered my ears. This guy is obviously LOUD!
Then it was time to start in on the sign design. I created the basic vectors in Illustrator then Imported them to EnRoute.
I opened a barrel I had created for Big Ben the horse as it would save me building this part again. I changed it from an oval to a circle to fit this design.
Using the basic layout I created half of the banner using the drawing tools. I then copied and flipped it for the other half before merging them together. The guild lines were then deleted.
Then I built one end of the scroll, copied, pasted and flipped that for the other end. I stretched out the bottom panel and added a couple of buttons.
The lettering file I chose was good but a little thin for routing. The cure was easy. I simply added a thin outline and then deleted the original lettering making things a little bolder. I often do this with thin fonts.
I wanted the banner to bow up a little so I drew an oval around it and by selecting the banner relief and the oval I modified the banner relief using the dome command.
Then I added a texture to the whiskey panel using the 'splotches' bitmap from my TEXTURE MAGIC collection.
I added the prismatic lettering and then combined all the relief into one file, ready for routing.
For the face I created a rough sculpture in Mudbox - a freehand sculpting program. It exports an .obj mesh file. I converted this to a .stl file in another program and then imported this into EnRoute. I sized, rotated and positioned the mesh and then created a zero height relief to which I would merge it
Both re selected and then the button that allows me to merge the mesh and the relief lit up. I merged highest to make them one. The mesh could then be taken away.
The head will be routed as a separate piece out of a 3" block of 30 lb Precision Board. I'll be using this rough form to use an an armature for the sculpting with Abracadabra Sculpt that will follow.
-dan
