For this project, I choose to experiment with laser engraving on spray painted acrylic sheet.
Choosing an Image
First I had to find and image that I want to try spray painting on to an acrylic cutout sample. The image that I chose was an picture of Deku from My Hero Academia. It was in full color, but it was large. That made it easier. It was close enough to being 300 dpi, so it posed no problem to image trace in Adobe Illustrator (AI).
Turn Image into Grayscale
I took the image into AI and image traced it. When I image traced it, I chose the grayscale option, which desaturates all the color. I used Image tracing to vectorize the artwork. Once it was vectorized, I proceeded to splitting the colors into four different shades of grey. Grayscale is the easiest to try out before using any colors. Once split into four shades, I saved it as an SVG and uploaded it.
After uploading, it was a matter of using the laser to engrave it. I engraved each layer starting with light to dark. After engraving, I spray painted it and dried it with a hair dryer then put it in for the next engraving.
Conclusion
The process wasn’t difficult, but it was more tidieous. It is almost like creating a stencil and then spraying it every time the stencil finished. Except it was more of a destructive method. I believe creating stencil would be the better option. Though trying this out, there is definitely an application for it, but the crucial point would be to have great registration marks. Overall, this was a success with a lot of trial and error. I will be utilize this for different art forms in the future.
Learn to make a Stamp on the Glowforge as well.
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