They’ve all been errors so far, really. But each time I learn something new. The first thing I learned is that I ought to split the designs up into layers of light-mid-dark tones, treating each one as a path. This laser cutter appears not to burn exactly, it’s so hot that the wood just...evaporates. The different levels of darkness have more to do with depth and shadows than burn-level. Which is interesting. This one above for example. The loewr part of the Lord’s beard is darker, obviously. But it kinda looks like his neck goes back in a weird way, you know? That doesn’t feel right, exactly. Everything else feels OK, I think. Maybe I’ll erase the third pass of the neck-beard part, it’s worth a shot. 

The second thing I’ve been playing with, well, maybe not quite the second as I’ve iterated about 25 of these things at this point, but the latest, is doing a -total- pass in the form of a background shape, that way the halo and words can really stand out. 

I tried adding a bit of depth and color with some water-colours bu they bled badly and didn’t look great, so that’s out. I’ve been focusing on getting things formally correct before adding champfers, goldleaf, red paint. Maybe I’ll get to that next week. 

It has been a welcome distraction amidst a fairly overwhelming bit of time, mostly in terms of work. In terms of life things couldn’t be better, and I need fewer distraction, not more.