Blogs
Sign Challenge SURPRISE
There’s only seven weeks to go before the 2016 Sign Challenge in Orlando at the International Sign Association Expo. I’ll bet there are a bunch of sign makers now scrambling to finish designing and building their entries. Peter and I were a little smug in the knowledge that we had our entries ready to go for some time now. Then I talked to our friends at Coastal Enterprises.
TEDx Talk by Dan Sawatzky
Last week I was privileged to give a talk at a local TEDx event. My talk was titled “It’s time to RETIRE!” For those interested in seeing the video I include it here…
Going from the gold
The 2016 Sign Challenge to be held at the International Sign Association Expo is coming fast! Peter’s and my entry pieces have been ready since the new year but before we sent them off we had one more piece to build. It’s the trophy that all of the entrants are hoping for. The design of the prize is meant to reflect the competition itself. The dimensional letters are stacked up inside a crate.
Some serious bling!
Normally the welded steel armatures we build for our sculptures don’t get any treatment. Most of the the frames never see the light of day and are hidden inside our sculptures behind a thick layer of sculpted concrete. The pieces going to Dubai are going into a water park environment and the client asked the they be galvanized to ensure they don’t rust. Today the galvanizer phoned to tell us they have some out of the zinc vat and were ready for pickup.
Six more routed
With all of the other things going on in our shop these days we manage to design and route three or four name plaques each day. There are still six weeks until the workshops so we will have time to do them at a somewhat leisurely pace. Six more are now ready for paint.
Simon
Simon’s name plaque was all about using texture bitmaps to manipulate the relief in cool ways. I wanted the finished name plaque to resemble two plates riveted together with the lettering raised over the top. The first step was to create the necessary vectors. I then created two separate fat reliefs. When I hit the render button they appeared as one relief but this is because they were the same height.
Dustin
Dustin’s name plaque was the next to be done. I used a method and tools that I don’t often use in EnRoute. The vectors were designed (as usual) in EnRoute. To create a chamfered edge I used the bevel tool and the ‘limit to height’ command. By defining the base (0.35″) and the height of the finished relief (0.75″) as well of the angle of the bevel (45 degrees)I had full control of the results
Viking arsenal
Work has begun in earnest on the first of the features for the Viking project. The crew has created quite the arsenal of Viking style weapons! Using EnRoute to create the files and the MultiCam Plasma cutter saved countless hours in creating these pieces. The same is true for the ships yet to come! We used the plasma cutter to cut the bases for the features from half inch thick plate steel. The structural frames were then welded off of this base.
Lorna’s name plaque
It’s that time once more. With the Sculpting Magic Workshops now just over seven weeks away it is time to begin preparations. That means it’s time to do the name plaques which we present to all attendees. That’s more than thirty different pieces to create