Ok, I'll offer my opinion; picture an imaginary straight line from one end to the other with the center of the scrolls centered on that line. The concept is good but to the eye it is all askew.
my thought-- the scrolls are growing out with too steep an angle. this makes for a flow that is less graceful. also, i think the 2 center ones should go in opposite directions. as you have them, they go in the same direction.
Nice drawing. You certainly have some very pleasing elements to it with your leaf structure.
I can see what you are trying to do..........but it doesn't work. The scroll shapes are not good.
Your scroll of origin on the far right.........It's to complicated and looks like it's actually going in the wrong direction to the right. The gold is accentuating that effect.
The heads of the scroll are too close to the preceding scroll because they loop around to much. Try tightening the scroll head and make it smaller. Again, the gold is emphasising the design flaws.
Your scrolls appear to be raised and lowered and not conform to a border. Perhaps it would be a good idea to draw the outline of the canvas area so you can see any large gaps in the design.
Wow and thanks!
I am amazed how many rules there is in a scroll scene!
I have read your comments several times and I think I get the hang of it.
Thanks I let you all know how it turns out to.
The best
What Andrew said. Some nice and very engravable elements. The shape of the scroll is critical and nothing else matters if they're not done correctly. You are close and if scrolls were elongated you'll be heading in the right direction.
You have a couple of small filler scrolls on the top that are not working.
I applaud your efforts and no doubt this will be an excellent design with some tweaking. :clapping:
Darned!
If I knew about those small filler scrolls an hour ago I would have left them out. I guess I have to work with them now
About that word "elongated" I had to look that up so now I know what that means. You are right Sam no doubt about that but I have a titanium circle in that cavity at the right. Because it's a circle I thought rounded scrolls would work better.
Thanks for all advice and now I know so I will keep it in mind while I am shading. Perhaps I can make it look more elongated then.
The best
Some members are probably scratching their heads and thinking "it looks perfect to me!" Andrew and I are nitpicking your design because it's good enough to nitpick. It's going to make a pretty engraving no doubt. You have put a lot of effort into this and it shows.
My instincts tell me that one less scroll at the small end would give you the room to elongate the scrolls. As they are now they're a bit compressed. Is it bad? Heck no! I'm anxious to see the finished work
Thanks Sam!
Here is the final design before I copied it to the knife, it shows better.
This is the front side, should I leave it like it is or could I engrave the same screen here. The inlays are in the way but do you think big scrolls could work here? I don't want to leave the theme and go with small scrolls fitted to the inlays. I am thinking to do the same design and just leave the pearl alone. Would that be weird or could it be weird enough to make it interesting?
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If you're really brave and clever you could make the design leave the steel and come out from under a border and onto the pearl, and then back under do come out into the steel again. This would take considerable work and if you've not engraved mother of pearl and I don't recommend you practice on this knife. It engraves pretty well in most cases but can be unpredictable. I consider it a much higher risk material than metal.
Well I'm not sure if I want to go there, have to do gold inlays in the pearl as well then.
I have never tried that but I will think about it for sure.
Thanks for the advice.
Mike
I don't mind your rounded scrolls. Some mention has been made of making them more elongated which would work too. Mine usually looks half way between yours and a typical sam welsh design. Your scrolls are exiting the other scrolls very harshly. Sam's exit very very smoothly and very early which makes all his leaves very long.
No way of doing it is really wrong.
My biggest problem which you could still change is that you have a gold backbone all the way through the design except that middle part where it's just leaves with no backbone... add a backbone... design will balance... knife will be very awesome. In my humble humble opinion. Great work though. Inlay in pearl definately wants practice on scrap pieces. Only seen one person do it yet
It appears that your secondary scroll backbones are originating behind the prior scroll and passing beneath that prior scroll's backbone.
It may be just personal preference, but I think it would be more effective to have the secondary scroll originate within the prior scroll and pass over its backbone. Look at some of Marty Rabeno's scrolls for an illustration of what I mean.
Or you could have the secondary scroll backbone grow directly out of the pimary scroll backbone, in plain view.
Perhaps you could draw it each of these three ways, just to see which you prefer.
Personally, I might even go so far as to cut it two or three different ways on a practice plate before deciding how I want to cut the knife.
Okay guys,
I think I have found a way to save it.
I have tried to incorporate your feedback into the design. The outlines is already cut so it is a matter of saving and do what I can to get it right.
In the picture below I have tried to come up with a way. Some of the leaves will probably get weird but I think the backbone is more clear to the eye now.
What do you think?
The best