Portrait to pattern question

[vhoskins]

I kind of get the general idea of it but I keep coming up at a loss. I have heard of floaters but can find nothing that explains what they are and why they are good on some pictures and bad on others. I have changed a few pictures into patterns but I always get stuck when it comes to hair or a part with lots of details. Like one I am trying to do right now is of an indian in a headdress, how am I supposed to do the feathers to where there is detail left but you won't end up with a huge chunk missing from the head? I will attach the original and what I have edited so far.

[vhoskins]

Here is what I have done so far.

[daliclimbs]

Actually that looks fine to me. The biggest thing to keep in mind is you will be cutting out the black sections. So for your picture to stay together you can't have any floating white sections. All the white needs to connect together to hold your picture together... so what you do is build " bridges" which is simply small connections between the white portions of Your pattern..

[vhoskins]

Ok, so do like I have been and remove small parts of black where it would leave floating white?

[Rapid Roger]

You have a very good start there.
One point I might make...Sometimes too much detail is a bad thing. If you just go for a "suggestion" of shape using veining and keep more of the wood and less holes, it can improve the overall look of things. But, that is just a personal point of view.
I am a "KISS" kind of guy (keep it simple stupid) I feel that  about 25% of hole and 75% of wood makes things look a lot more interesting. Especially if you have interesting grain in the wood but, even on a plainer wood such as Baltic birch plywood just a suggestion of shape like in a sketch attracts attention.

Just my two cents worth.

Rog

[daliclimbs]

Ok, so do like I have been and remove small parts of black where it would leave floating white?

Exactly. And Rog makes a good point. Some details are useless. Just get rid of them. But the basic principle I use is, don't leave any floating white parts.. sounds like you have it.

[vhoskins]

Very good point guys! Thanks a lot for the help! I will post the pattern for you guys to have dibs if you want, once I finish editing it!

[TripleB]

It looks to me like you have a real good handle on pattern making, the Indian chief will me a beautiful piece. The following link has a great video tutorial about "Floaters" and other terms used and how to fix and avoid them. Hope you find it useful.

http://www.scrollsawvillage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=673

Bob

[vhoskins]

Thank you Bob, I will watch it here in a sec. You can go ahead and nab what I have posted and tweak as you see fit. I won't start editing it some more till tomorrow.