I decided to post this example of a sandcarving that I did of a silhoutte pug design on a rock. Here I wanted to point out that some silhouette designs look okay to work with, but others like this don’t look as great.
About the Sandcarved Rock of Pug Pets
This project was meant to be a gift for someone that has two twin pug dogs. To tell the pups apart, they had different color collars, pink and green. I filled in the sandcarved letters of their name below the pug silhoutte with the appropriate paint color.
How I Created the Project
I started out by using the techniques discussed in the rock sandcarving member’s area on how to find loads of free designs for rock or glass. Unfortunately, there weren’t a lot of designs available for pugs that would work for this project. Instead of spending the time to design my own pug pattern, I decided to give this silhoutte a try.
I placed one of the silhoutte designs on one side and then used my software to flip the other pug so they are facing each other.
Then their names were engraved below each side.
Side view of the rock.
My Thoughts & Suggestions
In my opinion, this wasn’t a very appealing silhoutte design and it ruined this rock. After this trial and error, I learned my lesson, and I suggest designing your own if you can’t find a decent design to use.
Because a pug’s ears and tail are so close to it’s body, a silhoutte design is probably not the type to use. The design looks more blobbed together than something appealing.
Tip: Use silhoutte designs only if they are very distinguishable. If not, use designs with more islands to show off all features of the image.
What Are Your Thoughts?
Please let me know your thoughts or questions below.
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I understand what you are saying, and I agree. Though I do have to tell you, they do make me smile. I need to etch glasses for a Chrstmas gift, so I know not to go this route. I think I wlll look thru my embroidery designs and see what will work. Thanks for the info.
Gina
@Gina, feel free to share pictures with us! Also, I think some of the silhouettes aren’t as bad. Other patterns do always look better though
I have a pug and the way they are built they kind of look like they are “blobbed” together, as you put it. I give you an A for effort.
They look like pugs. I have the same problem with the silhouettes. Some turn out really great and some are like you can tell what it is suppose to be but without specific features that I would like to define. I am trying to learn how to add the details. To me it is tedious, somewhat discouraging. The thing with etching, engraving, sand blasting there are no do overs. So I have learnt to really think about what I want the out come to be.
@Julie, my thoughts exactly. The more experience, the easier it is to tell which design will work but some designs look borderline and are the only ones available (without designing your own of course), so I will sometimes just go with them.
To prevent ruining a glass with a bad design etched, I will sometimes test it on scrap glass first, as long as it doesn’t have a lot of pieces to weed from the stencil.