Fox Head Sign

Our Fox & Hounds Restaurant project included several sculpted trees. A sign hangs from a branch in one of these trees.

As a first step in creating the sign, my father opened the driftwood bitmap from our Texture Magic: Classic Collection in Photoshop.

Then he used the warp tool to shape the bitmap into a gentle 'S' curve.

Once he was happy with the texture, he traced an outline with vectors and then imported them (and the modified bitmap) into EnRoute.

He also opened, copied and pasted the fox medallion he had previously completed. He resized it and added some shoulder pieces to make the sign flow. He added a sandblasted woodgrain texture to the shoulders.

My dad also created a separate relief for the lettering border and added some domed lettering.

Finally, he created a second copy of the sign and flipped it before adding the lettering to each side. (This way the two sides fit together to form a double sided sign.)

As you can see, the sign routed up quite nicely.

See you next week!

Fox Head Barrel

As part of the design process for our Fox & Hounds Pub project, we created a few samples. These pieces also helped to ensure the contractor and trades were on the same page and knew what to expect from us. Our first sample was a fox medallion.

My father created the vectors for the barrel in EnRoute and then used the jigsaw tool (pictured below) to create the staves of the barrel.

He created the outer ring and the barrel top first. (As usual) he used the render button to double check his work.

Then dad selected the outer staves of the barrel and built each one separately (with slight variations in height). As usual, he created each one as a separate relief.

Then he imported the sandblasted wood grain bitmap (from our Texture Magic: Classic Collection).

Since bitmaps can't be rotated inside of EnRoute, dad selected everything else and rotated the reliefs to apply the textures to the barrel staves. At this point everything was merged together for form one relief.

To create the fox, dad used a stock STL file. He resized and positioned it before merging it to the barrel top he had created previously.

And just like that it, was ready to tool path and send off to the CNC router.

Fossil Fish

Many years ago, just after he learned how to use bitmaps to create textures in EnRoute, my father was eager to see just what he could do with them. He began looking everywhere he could to find inspiration and he found it in his collection of old National Geographic magazines. He spent hours scanning the old photos and see what the images would do in the program. By trail and error, he figured out what worked the best and how to tweak and adjust the pictures to work even better.

For instance, he found a picture of a fossilized fish and pulled it into Photoshop to adjusted the picture’s contrast and add a few details.

Then he created a quick vector file in Illustrator — drawing the vectors for a circular sign.

He imported these files into EnRoute and set to work.

The basic file is quite simple. He made a relief wth a circular outline and modified the relief to add borders and some lettering.

Then he added the fish fossil and some texture using bitmaps.

He added the fish first. (The photo’s white skeleton was raised by the 0.15" and the black sections remained unchanged). Then he layered a second bitmap called splotches (from our Texture Magic: Classic Collection) over the entire file to add a little more texture. The texture was applied wth a subtle 0.05”. As you can see below — the texture is a very effective addition to the sign!

See you next week!