How Would You Bevel This?

[aguilerag]

I am attaching 2 photos. One the rough design that shows te idea, the other the wallet back. My question is should I bevel so the shadow part is higher or the opposite way? Just curious to what you would do? Thanks!

Gabriel

[JustKate]

I would depress the shadowed areas. (Make them lower.)

[JJs Leatherworks]

Gabriel,

I agree with JustKate, and would bevel to depress the dark areas - basicly inverted carving.

Nice pattern. Looking forward to seeing completed item.

JJ

[aguilerag]

Thanks Justkate and JJ. I did a practice peice with a little part of the design prior to starting and thought the dark area beveling looked better (that's why I didn't draw a border around the pattern so the white area will blend with rest of wallet) but figured I would get some experienced leather workers opinion first.

JJ, this is another "Aztec/maya" design I'm trying to get done for my Cinco De Mayo booth. Where I live, they have a huge celebration in the area around my neighborhood...parade, bands, booths etc. so I spoke with one of my friends who owns a store on the parade route and she said I could set up a booth outside her store.

I have been drawing all my designs down in an art book so I have a book similar to a tattoo book that I could show to potential clients.

Gabriel

[lightningad]

i agree with the others - a more natural effect would be to have the shadows deeper...

..but then why not get a bit of scrap leather and try experiment by doing it both ways. You'll gain the experience of carving that particular design twice before committing to the good leather, and you might find you prefer the other look.

adam

[oltoot]

Sorry to confuse the issue but the dark areas are for the most part, the outermost parts of the headdress and are actually protecting the warrior's face and eyes

[Cyberthrasher]

Sorry to confuse the issue but the dark areas are for the most part, the outermost parts of the headdress and are actually protecting the warrior's face and eyes

That would be more of a concern if it were a realistic piece. But, since it's more stylized, I think it would be better to depress the dark areas for continuity. Normally, anything that's shadowed is like that because it sits lower/farther than something adjacent which is blocking the light from hitting it. If you look at his face and the "visor" of the headdress, those dark areas are actually lower than the adjacent pieces. It would be a lot better to keep a more realistic approach to these spots and leave the sides of the headdress to "stylistic interpretation". If you were to make something on the face look out of place - it would look REALLY out of place because that's the first thing people are going to notice.

[aguilerag]

Thanks everyone for their opinions. I am going to bevel the dark areas and use the back grounding tool to "fill the spaces" per say. I seen in a book about silhouettes and think that is what I am trying to accomplish.

Going to do a few practice pieces to get it correct the. Will try to tackle te real one. Will put a pic up when finished!

[aguilerag]

Got busy with real job so I just started working on this again.

One had the flash on the other the flash was off.

[Bob Blea]

I think it's looking good!

Bob