Reproducing a carving

[George Skinner]

I need to reproduce the carving in the picture below. How can I get this modeled so I can carve it on my cnc?
Carving.jpg

[dan nelson]

I cannot tell by your picture is it a onlay or a vcarving or both? What design software are you using?Dan

[George Skinner]

It is not an onlay. Everything is carved below the surface.
I am using VCarve for most things. Do not have anything for 3D yet. Thinking about Aspire but open to suggestions. Looks like you can do 3D toolpathing with the new version of VCarve so any 3D design program could be used for the designing.
Thanks

[Bruce Page]

George, contact Michael at the email below for a quote. He does beautiful modeling work at a reasonable price.

http://www.carveddetails.com

mezalick@nni.com

[dan nelson]

Bruce PM sent

[George Skinner]

Thanks Bruce that may be the way I have to go although I was hoping to figure out how to do it myself. I know there will be more of this type of work from this customer in the future.

[Art Mann]

If you really want to do a lot of 3-D work, I think it would be worthwhile for you to buy Aspire. I downloaded and worked with the demo enough to realize it is a lot easier to learn than general purpose 3-D design software. You probably won't be able to reproduce that little design right away because the learning curve is steep.

This is just a free opinion so take it for what it is worth. I mostly abandoned true 3-D carving for 2-D and 2.5-D. I couldn't see any way to make any money at it. Both the design time and cut time are about 5 or 10 times that of similar 2.5-D products and sell for maybe 10 or 20 % more. There are, of course, some very brilliant people who can design and sell beautiful 3-D designs and carvings and make good money at it. But it takes a huge amount of raw talent to do it. Education and practice alone aren't enough. Make sure you have what it takes before investing a lot of time and money into it. I didn't have what it takes.

[George Skinner]

I took Bruce's suggestion and contacted Michael. I sent him the same picture I posted here Saturday night to get a quote and Sunday morning I had a jpg of the model he created for me. Talk about fast service. It had to be tweaked some so I sent him a little more information and this morning I have a completed model. I would still be scratching my head trying to figure out where to start.
For anyone needing some modeling done I would highly recommend him.

[Bruce Page]

That's good to hear. He does beautiful work.
Be sure to post a picture of your finished piece.

[Art Mann]

Michael is one of those brilliant people I mentioned in a previous post.