Good day everyone, got another question.
I have no problem designing accurate parts such as brackets, mounting flanges, adapter plates, multi part assemblys ect but what are people using to design these intricate designs like landscapes, some singage, and other artsy designs? I’ve seen a lot of refrences to inkscape and i have it but haven’t had a chance to really work with it and learn it. Do they sit there and draw every line segment separately? If thats the case some of these things would take months to draw up. Any better options? I only ask because ive had quite a few requests for artsy work but its not my strong point. Id like to take on some of this work but need to find a better way to make the designs.
I was about to say the only way to escape allot of work on the intricate designs is to buy them… but even then they can take a fair amount of work.
In Inkscape there is a trace bitmap tool. How it works is you import an image then select trace bitmap. It scans the image and creates a vector file. It is tunable but even with a well tuned trace bitmap you will have a fair amount of editing.
Another option is to import the image and trace over it with the bezier tool. This sounds painful… and it can be. But you have more control over the design and you can identify problem geometry and solve it as you go. I have spent several hours cleaning up after the trace bitmap on some of the more intricate stuff. Like everything plasma it’s a learning curve.
In fusion 360 you can use the Canvas tool to do the same thing. Import an image and trace over it. Langmuir has a short 5 min tutorial on doing that. Also you can look at what @TinWhisperer has done with it. He has a Toyota truck he did using canvas that turned out really good… among other things.
Sort of in the “buy them” arena is plasmaspider.com - but it’s only $20/yr to get access to the free files section. There are a ton of files, most are pretty good and if they’re just designs but the poster hasn’t actually cut it, that’s usually noted. There are also a lot of people who will help with a design you might be having trouble with.
@72Pony thats pretty much how ive been doing it, just not happy with the results. I guess more time learning the in and outs of the programs is what im going to have to do. I have considered buying dxf’s but to me thats no “my” work, its someone elses creation that i just cut out. Im just odd like that.
@TinWhisperer thanks, i did a quick Google search of the kind of work im talking about. In particular the scene in the upper right. There has to be a better way then drawing each line segment right? Or am i totally missing something. Granted this is the level id like to get to and i realise im fairly new to the artsy part of plasma.
I’ll do a stream on how to come up with some of these artsy shapes I think you’ll be surprised on how easy it can be.
a lot of what people do are remixing .I’m sure if you looked at that panel you pointed out in the upper right every one of those elements are going to be some kind of drawing that people have been reusing and rehashing for years.
I can tell what you’re going for is original genuine art that you can call your own so that’s exactly what we’ll do in the video.
