Thread: portraits plus

Strike me roan an pickle me grandmother!!! as me ol mate Ted Bullpit would say


Those portraits are bloody fanfriggintastic mate!!

Ive got a bunch of photos Id love to do that way... mmm okay dumb question number 1 in this thread and number 399999393397 all up it is pyromania isnt it? you burn the pic onto the timber right using a wee burner thingymabob?... isnt it?... mmm maybe its scroll work? HOW THE HECK DO YOU DO THAT??

sigh... beautiful... seriously very nice mate

Can you do groups of people that way? like a family portrait? mmm or just one head at a time?... hope you wont mind giving me some coaching on this?... what a fantastic pressy to give!... man I just thought of something!! with 8 nippers and now 5 grandies Im gonna be flat out just doin them without goin into the whole mob with their partners as the one pic! Anyway its fantastic stuff juvy

Cheers
Shane

Great work Juvy. I've had a go and done one portrait so far, of a mate, which is now hanging in his den. The learning curve is in getting the computer to change a colour picture to black and white, but the trick is to have a picture that does not have pieces falling out of it when cut. That is the tedious bit. All a bit tricky, and with some fine cuts, they are worth it in the end when hanging on a wall.

You guys are making me blush......
Thanks for the compliments.... think all in all I've made about 20 of these things now.
other portraits
Shane.... they are scrolled...... I find the scrolling doesn't take all that long.... the time consuming part is making the pattern. There are programs out now that will do most of that for you, but I find ( and most people from the dedicated US portrait forums agree) those programs just cannot do on the fly what a first rate program and alot of elbow ( make that finger?) grease will do. For one... those programs do not know the person, so have no way of knowing that the wrinkle above the nose has to be there, or that the slight scar is a must, or grandma's always had a beauty spot and that just has to be left in.
The shortest time it ever took me was about 3 hours, but I've also managed to spend 3 weeks before I got it right.
Also. not every photo will work..... sometimes the one I think will turns out horrible.... best bet are very clear photos.... great if the background is simple as that saves you the time to get rid of it..... then .... straight on pictures like the one of my grandson aren't real good... just a little from the side works much better because that creates shadows. These scrolled portrait work like the old papercuttings did.... with light and shadow... dark haired people , people with wrinkles and scars..... those are much easier then smooth skinned , blond kids....
Because of the starkness of the contrast kids portraits loose their soft baby look most of the time.

Now for the quick lesson..... "all" I do is open photo, click on "image" then "mode" then "grayscale" - other programs might call it something different, but all photo/paint programs let you do this .l That's usually done in just a couple of clicks... no art to this part.
Next step is to up the contrast, in Adobe click on "image" then "brightness/adjustment" then "contrast". In the window that comes up slide the bottom slider to the right until you're happy .... ..... with some portraits you're almost there after that, but most need a bit more fiddling. Be careful you don't loose too much of the face and make it unrecognizable.... you might have to start over and use less contrast....

For your first try stop there..... then "pour" a light colour over the protrait to see if there are any floaters....To do that I click on the "magic wand" then choose a light colour and click on the paint bucket. I dont' know what that's called in all the other programs and there are different ways to do that. If there are floaters , go back and make bridges.... try to keep it natural... just thin a shadow or widen a highlight a bit. When there are no floaters..... print... glue onto wood.... scroll..... make sure you leave at least the big pieces in ( tape them in) to keep the wood more stable while cutting and later sanding.... when done... some people use sanders, I usually fold sandpaper and very carefully take the fuzzies off.
Then you have the choice of background.... you don't need to stick with black.... specially if it's kids try something different.... I've done Steve Irwin and used green as background.
You can use acrylic paint on MDF or you can use felt...... make ( hahah..... I can't MAKE ......) a frame or if you're smart.... size the portrait so it will fit into a cheap frame from the reject shop. All done......

Now to start..... I'd stick with ONE subject..... but of course you can do as many in one pictures as you can fit on a pattern..... just remember the smaller the faces get the more difficult they will be to cut and the more fragile the tiny pieces will be.

Whatever you do..... don't be discouraged if the first one doesn't come out too good... keep trying.... it's not always the patternmaker or scroller...... sometimes no matter what you do , some photos just will not make good scroll pictures because you loose all the different levels of gray.... faces may look fat or are missing cheeks because with just black and white you loose the dimension. After a lot of practise you can counteract some of it, but like I said.... sometimes it just won't work.... ditch the picture and get another photo and give it another try.

Good luck and just ask if you get stuck, I'm sure other scrollers will pick up this thread and there'll be someone who can explain things better then I can

Juvy

Nice work Juvy. I'm using Paint.Net at the moment, it does a pretty good job converting images to patterns. Then I'll run the finished image through inkscape to clean it up. Pretty much all of my stuff ends up on AFSP.

I've never used paint.net? I have tried inkscape for clean up using the tutorial and it did work, but I had to print the instructions out.... there's a bit to remember!
I am so used to Adobe ( used it 10 years now) I usually forget there's another program to clean things up with. By now I lost the print out... am a bit on the lazy side and just couldn't be bothered to go locate and download them again lol

Coyote is really pushing their program now, but I'm just not impressed with the way the program converts..... what do you think?

Juvy

Juvy thank you for the information, I had missed a couple of your steps so will give it a go next time.

Yeah, ya right about Coyote, it's not all it's cracked up to be. It may be alright to start out with, if you don't know how to use any other software and why pay for it when there is freeware out there that can do a better job.

Jim.... I forgot to mention.... my instructions don't always work on all photos. I can't explain the reasons as I haven't figured it out yet myself.
Some photos come out beautiful right away..... other I have to fiddle with , try different things , but some no matter what I do they just don't come out right.... one woman's really nice looking photo kept coming out making her look like a stunned deer! lol After three tries I gave up and asked for another photo.

Best bet is to try 3-4 different photos.... scan them in, convert to gray scale and do a quick contrast to see which one will work the best. Try outlining and then combining if the contrast takes away too much, but make sure you don't end up with plain linework ... it's a bit of a balancing act.... lots of trial and error

Good luck
Juvy

Wonderful work,Will have to give it a go.

Excellent work, Juvy. And a fine tutorial, too.

The paint bucket is a great tool to identify floaters. It's even available in MSPaint, although I don't know if MSPaint accommodates gray-scale adjustment. One thing it does have is image flipping. Why is this important? Because you can avoid gluing the print onto the wood, which otherwise needs to be removed after cutting - lots of fiddly bits and sanding. Print the flipped image on a laser printer, or have it photocopied. Attach the print face down on the workpiece, with tape outside the image area, or staples in outside waste areas. Then go over the back of the print with a clothes iron at its highest setting (usually "Linen"). This transfers the acrylic emulsion toner to the wood. Remove the print, and cut away. Some photocopiers can flip the image if it isn't available in your image software.

Now, here's where it gets "interesting." Some of us aren't as symmetrical as we think. We could have a hard time recognizing ourselves in photos, because they don't match our reflection in a mirror. Having both prints handy (normal and flipped) can persuade a client of the accuracy of your rendition.

An even more bizarre trick: Split a frontal image along a vertical centre line. Make mirror images of each half, and splice into two images. Altogether, you have four different personalities expressed. This might be best left to psychologists, of course.

Joe

nice job keju well done

Thanks everyone

Joe, I've been playing with portraits way back in my school days ( not telling how long ago that was lol) There are all sorts of interesting trick-the-eye pictures on line... very intriguing.

I've heard of people using their ink jets to transfer patterns directly to wood, didn't know you could do this with a laser too.
No problem with the flipping of pictures.... even some printer programs will do it, freebies like Irfanview too.
I do like the much clearer, thinner and smoother line one can get on paper tho, much easier and more accurate to cut.
I still masking tape to the wood, then use a good gluestick ( the blue one from office work or Uhu) to glue the pattern on. If you use a cheap one it tends to lift while cutting. When done I can usually carfully peel off the pattern. The longer one leaves the tape on the wood the harder it'll be to pull off.

Juvy