Pirate Ship

[FrankEV]

Another subject I have been searching for, for quite some time, is a Pirate ship.  Most of the ship images are great to look at but I was unable to find any that were suitable to convert into a scrollable pattern due to all the fine details.  I found this Tattoo Image posted by Holy Trinity Tattoo Studio with no indication of copyright or use restrictions.  The image is not very cluttered with a lot of fine details, but it took a lot of work to convert the image into a scrollable pattern.  Inkscape did a pretty good job of making a usable SVG.  However, since the image was really of a simple line-type drawing, Inkscape made the somewhat thick/wide lines into very narrow long open cutout areas.  This required me to add a bunch of bridges. The result was in an 11 x 17 inches pattern that was a difficult cut. 

The pattern was cut in 5/32” solid core ply using Pegas #2/0 and #1 Spiral blades.  The backer is ¼” BB Ply painted black.

At this point I need to state that I am not happy with my cutting.  The very close together parallel cuts and tiny bridges did not make for a neat clean cutting.  I think I should have taken a different approach when converting the image to a pattern.  Areas like the Spars and Mast should have been fully open to the backer.  Might have made cutting easier and cleaner.

Although the cutting was not as good as I would have liked I knew painting the cut panel would hide a lot of the flaws.  I also knew I would be painting the cut panel like doing a coloring book, with the black lines showing.   I decided ahead that the Flag would be Black with a White Scull and Cross Bones, Sails an Off-White canvas color, Ship and Spars Brown and the Waves Aqua Green with White foam (dabbled with a brush).  Wasn’t sure about how to handle the wind effects but knew it could not be white so decided on a VERY Pale Blue to add to the effect.  Painting was done mostly with my air brush using Artist Acrylic Air brush paints with some brush work on the Flag and Spars.

The assembled panel was finished with multiple coats of Clear Gloss Acrylic. 

All in all, the finish product does not look tooooo bad but as much as I feel this is not my best work, I decided to mount the panel in an old existing frame that has some dings and dents and has been lying on the shelf for a long time.  Kinda suitable for the subject. Just cleaned it up with a fresh coat of a rattle can Gloss Brown paint.

 Just showing it because of the amount of work I put into completing it.   You can be the judge of the work quality.

[barb.j.enders]

It looks like a quality piece to me.

[jerry walters]

You are your own worst critic.  I'm sure this would win first place in any art show.  But what do I know?  All I know is that it looks great.

Jerry

[daveww1]

terrific job 

[JessL]

Looks amazing.  

[Denny Knappen]

Mighty fine cutting.  The colors add some pop.

[FrankEV]

3 hours ago, Denny Knappen said:

Mighty fine cutting...

Beieve me the cutting is not clean.  The painting hides a lot of the cutting flaws.  Yeah, 4 feet away it looks pretty good, but I know how difficult it was to cut cleanly. 

Do appreciate the nice comment though.

Edited February 16, 2024 by FrankEV

[Peter N White]

Great job on a challenging piece.

[ChelCass]

Well Frank, I would be proud to hang your ship on my wall.  It is beautiful and all the little flaws you see others would not.  It's those little flaws that make a wonderful finished product. 

[Hawk]

Another great piece. The nice thing about the flaws that you see, only you see them, to the rest of us it's a great piece! The colors really make it pop!

Chris

[rjweb]

Frank, that's a great looking piece, RJ