Bronzed finish medallions

[jhicks]

These are 15" x 15" x 1.5" 15# HDU medallions finished in some very nice metallic latex primers and paints. There were 2 cutting strategies used here. One was done entirely with a 1/8" tapered ball nose. 2 hrs 45 minutes. The second was done with ball nose over figure and end mills for border and background area clear to depth around letters.
They both were primed with tinted latex Benjamin Moore primer, then with the gold finish made by Modern Masters and sold at our Benjamin Moore store. 800-942-3166 is on the jar but no web address
Then finished with a diluted bronze wash and wipe then finally highlighed with the gold wipe again for accent contrast at high points.
Having heard and tried several golds, its hard to find a nice bright one but these seem to have a nice variety of shades and opaque to semi, to sheer finishes and the gold really came out better than many we have tried. I think they have some for exterior as well and come in small 6oz bottles for smaller projects.
I primed one by brush (the darker one) and the one on the right with a sprayer. The brush gave better coverage of HDU texture and had a nice high build quality to fill the pits. I ended up brushing over the spray coat for this reason but left a bit of the HDU texturing in the lighter version to give the darker wash more areas to penetrate for a different patina.
In the end, we made one for the client, one for ourselves and let them choose the one they liked best.
Which one would you choose?
Enjoy.

999

[john_l]

really cool jerry

[kivimagi]

I like the one on the right best.

[myxpykalix]

Thats the coolest thing i've seen since...well, the last thing I made! I like the one on the left. from my eye it looks to bring out more detail and definition in the muscles of the arm and details in the face. I'm sure they probably are cut exactly the same but the different application techniques are what created the "shading"? Both are great though..

[jhicks]

Actually Jack, they were dimensioned slightly differently with the right model exhibiting more depth in areas like the hair, eyebrows, arm etc.
The left model did get some hand tweaking to define some details more sharply in the hair and glasses area.
The letters were also different as described above but the right side model has much sharper edges due the the 2D vertical cut and clear vs the 3D ball nose type cut strategy. Interesting the finishing creates that illusion.
In the end the client chose the one on the right to represent their vision for this piece.

[henrik_o]

Whoa, that is some seriously impressive work. Fantastic, and thanks for sharing some of the details of the making.

[jhicks]

Jack, let me shed some light on the "shading" question.
Shading was accomplshed as described with the finishing steps and wiping of wash coats to fill deep recesses and buff high areas revealing the underlying gold. Then after the dark wash, the highlights were simply wiped with a rag much like a dry brush technique only with a cotton cloth to apply brighter gold the the tops of letters, borders, hair etc. Like polishing your shoes only just the high spots.
BUT the direct answer to what creates shadows/shading is the absence or presence of light to greater or lesser degrees.
Couldn't resist. seriously though Im sure some of our shop lighting added to the paint and wash shading at this angle.
Glad you folks like it. Its always nice to get some positive approval from the botters out there.

[scottcox]

Jerry,

You said the one done by 1/8" taper bit took 2hr 45min. Did the other have a significantly different overall cut time?

[jhicks]

Well Scott, I'm sure it was less in direct cut and clear time as we use the larger combination of bits described above with more like 30% plus step over vs 9%.
I didn't time it specifically because i was designing and cutting on the fly as i watched the results and modified or adjusted as i went.
I am confident if i were to do it again and had all tool paths ready to go, the area clear and profile would be considerably less. That time on the ball nose was running at only 180 IPM with plunge at 65 which certainly could have been ramped up but there was really no need for speed and I wanted as little finishing as possible.