Engraving a face with Artcam Pro

[rikalife]

I have done this, and the quality of the eyes is not as good, hair and mouth of the person are ok. Anybody knows a trick to make the eyes look real?

[billp]

Ricardo,
I usually use the sculpting tools and smudge/smooth/deposit uhtil i get what I want. use SMALL values, and build things up slowly. Be sure to "apply" very often so you can go back and work on just the areas you want to correct. If you practice enough you can even add individual eyelashes...

[phil_o]

My first attempt at using Face Wizard was yesterday. I used the female face that is used in the tutorial. I created a cut file with the relief maching command and a 1/8" ball cutter. I cut the file at 100% and again at 200%. The overall shape was good but the detail was poor. How can I improve the detail? It looked pretty good in the preview mode.

[billp]

Phil,
What stepover did you use on your .125" bit? And what size was the final piece? I usually use an 8% stepover when I do faces with that size bit You may also have to scale up/down the size of the bit you use as well. And in Face Wizard a simple scaling up/down in the depth of your file can make a major difference in the overall appearance.
Usually the real trick is to use the bit that gives you the best coverage for the bulk of the piece. Then go back in the 2-D viewing mode and change your model to a greyscale. Now you can draw vectors around any areas you think might need a more detailed cut. Click on these areas, and then only machine "selected vectors". This saves you the time of going back and doing the entire piece with a smaller diameter bit ( as in your case maybe a .0625" ball nosed bit..).
If your image looked good in the preview mode it should have cut the same way......

[phil_o]

Thanks,
I just got Artcam recently and I could use some help. I'm very familiar with Part Wizard but I have a lot to learn with Artcam.