Comments on a pattern

[jscott2]

I made (at least tried to make one     ) the pattern from the photo.  I'd appreciate your comments on how to improve it - to me it doesn't look very good but . . .

Thanks,
Jim

[tdpainter]

Hey Jim, First My must say I think you did a great job with the pattern. There are a few things I would do, One is make some places thicker on the car to show shadows and maybe one underneath the car to show that it is on the ground. Also I think you may run into a few floaters because some lines look to close together, also I don't do any scroll saw work myself but I'm thinking that from the little bit I have learned from others you may want to make the lines a little bit thicker so it well be easier to cut. that's a few things that I would do but if you like it that way, thats great as well. But Once again I do think you done a great job with the pattern.

Have  a great day

TDPainter

[EIEIO]

i agree that the pattern looks very good. I look for places to put bridges. You seem to have a good distribution of bridges - maybe need some at the left rear wheel. Usually wherever a line passes in front of another line you can put a bridge by breaking the rear line at the intersection - for example, just below the body line at the front of that wheel. In cars I usually try to add in thin lines where there are seams in the surface - like the outline of the hood or doors. 

For a car pattern I usually try to add a logo below it - like the toyota logo.

[jscott2]

Ray and TDPainter, thanks for your suggestions and kind comments.  Pattern making is certainly a learning process.  I've revised the pattern and, unless I really missed something, I'll use this version for cutting.

One problem is hiding the starting drill hole for cuts, such as the lower trim line along the doors, that don't meet a larger cutout.

Thanks again,
Jim

[daveo]

Jim
with regards to the lines thats what TD was telling you, you need to make them a bit thicker
now I have taken your pattern and done that for you, hope that helps
you will notice that in a couple of places there are now breaks in the lines, and that is because they were so fine the trace struggled to pick them up, but sure you can get round that

Dave
PS and if thats your first attempt its a bloody good one
happy cutting

[tdpainter]

Looks great the shadow really helps and same for the thicker lines. I think it really brings out the car more.

[jscott2]

daveo, that's much better than my pattern and now I have to ask.  How did you thicken the lines?  My method is to set the pencil size to what I want and paint over the line until I get what I want.  That gives jaggy lines when seen up close, yours are so much smoother.

What's the secret?

Thanks for your version,
Jim

[EIEIO]

running your GIMP drawing through the Inkscape Trace Bitmap function will give a nice, smooth look to your lines, and give a chance to do the Fill and Stroke to get a gray fill with black or red outline (makes it easier to see when cutting.

The shadow added a lot. It's coming great.

Note that you can help emphasise lines by using a spiral blade - a flat blade will take 2 cuts on a thick line.

[daveo]

Jim
as Ray says it is well worth tracing the bitmap of any pattern no matter how good it looks when you have finished in Gimp.
Now if you have neer done it
open inkscape and import your car pattern
the
Path-trace bitmap
in the dialog  box you nee to play with the threshold (in this case I think I set it to 620)
then OK
you can now close that box
you are now left with one image on top of the other, click the top image and drag to the left so they are side by side.
the bitmap is usually but not always the top one, but will be the darker crisper image
(if ever in doubt of this, then with the left hand image selected go down the the colour bar at the bottom of the creen and click on red if the image turns red it's the bitmap then ctrl+z to udo.
now delete the original, reselect the bitmap and put it back on the canvas.
now lets assume you want the red/grey option
with the image selected (nothing will work if its not) go back down to your colour bar and right click on red from the pop up box select "set as stroke"
then move across to the light grey ( which is almost white in inkscape) right click and select "set as fill"
you should now have a page of light grey blotches with red outlines.
if you want to emphasise the the red outline or thicken the lines
in the bottom left hand corner of the screen you will see 2 colured rectangles these are depicting the colours you have chosen "fill and stroke"
at the right of the red stroke rectangle you will see a number the is your line thickness, of which will be defaulted to pixels, right click on the numer and from the pop up box you can now choose a thicker line, when I did the above I think it was 0.282mm and I increased that to0.75mm approx 3 times as thick.
hope thats as clear as mud for you, just give it a go and any questions just ask, theres always someone around on here that will have answer

Dave

[pddesertrat]

this is great info guys, thanks for sharing your knowledge