This small sign featuring a hot rod includes a checkered flag background. Today we will look at a simple method to make the checks 3D and also add a ‘wave’ to the flag.

The face and lettering of the sign, the car ‘s wheels, and he checkered flag backdrop were all created as detailed 3D carving files.

The routing file for the car itself (sans wheels) was done as a simple cutouts. Tool-pathing was done with a rough pass (3/8" ball nose) and a final pass with a 1/8" ball nose at 80% overlap. Once the routing was finished we glued up the pieces and then using our die grinder we quickly shaped the fenders and added texture to the top, side and bottom edges of the sign.

The lettering was done as separate reliefs which are merged with a textured background.

The checkered flag was created using bitmaps. We created the bitmaps in Photoshop and applied them to our model in Enroute. The first bitmap was used to add dimension to the checkered pattern — the white checked areas will be raised above the black ones.