A good freind of mine Makes these awesome life sized Cows, and sends them all over the world.
He asked me if I would do a small sign for his workshop
Even though he is more than capable of doing his own, his only restriction is the software that he uses for his router doesn't have the ability to do true 3D carving like I can with Enroute.
He has always been amazed at what I've been able to accomplish using Enroute software so He wanted to see what I could do with his sign.
I started by Importing the above artwork from his web site into Enroute, then traced over the cow using the drawing tools in Enroute.

I then separated the areas of the drawing that I wanted to treat differently,(by making various types of reliefs etc.) 
I added some text and a background to the text, and a woodgrain texture (from Dan Sawatzky's Texture Magic Collection Of Bit Maps).
 to the main body of the sign which is a dished in surface. I also added the raised boarder around the perimeter of the sign. ( the extreme yellow band on the outside is not going to be part of the finished piece, the cows horns will be sticking out in mid air. this boarder is only there so I had a surface to build the horns on). The total thickness of this sign is about 3-1/4 inches its hard to see that in these shots.

Once I had everything build as I wanted in Enroute I took a screen shot of the finished relief and imported it as a jpeg into Inkscape (which is a free drawing program, similar to photoshop) and applied some colors to the piece to give it the finished look.
Now If I Can Get My Computer Back from the doctor I'll start the process of making this sign.

I love it when a idea comes together.
This is the finished excavatorReady to go to work and show potential clients what is possible.

I've been working on a display for a couple of shows I have coming Up.
March 20th The Chamber after hours @ Chalmers Insurance.(were I get my introduction as a new Member)
And May 15th @ The Business to business expo @ the Mount Washington Hotel In brenton woods.
This is what I've come up with so far, A few more things to add but It's looking pretty good.

This has by far been the toughest glazing Job to date.
The Glaze I use is a mixture of exterior house paint and water based urethane (About 65% paint & 35% urethane,)

This mixture gets brushed on trying to cover all surfaces then wiping off and rubbing off the areas you want to keep lighter and leaving the glaze in the recesses and textures to make things look old and worn, or in this case worked!!!
This Machine didn't just come from the dealer!

This is a tedious but necessary process. You Need to work fast (no waiting for paint to dry here) it will get away from you faster than you think.
It's important that you have everything ready before you start, (a variety of wrags, some water on hand to soften things up if you get behind). You also want to make sure the heat is down and there are no fans blowing on the work.

I struggled with the decision to add hydraulic lines or not. After all this machine looked pretty good, and if it were to be installed on an exterior sign it would most likely be viewed from a distance. But as this is ment as a display piece I took the plunge and added the lines.

When I go to the dump I rarely come home empty handed, call it repurposing. These hydro lines came from pieces of pencil rod (3/16" metal rod) which I found in the dump metal pile.Score
Fitting bending and fitting and bending,making the brackets that hold the lines securely in place, Cleaning the rust off the pencil rod then finally glueing and in their final position, what a tedious adventure.
But what It added to the realistic look of the machine was well worth it.
Below are some shots of Glue drying (I was going to do a video but I didn't have enough memorie in this blog for that)

The next step was building up a base sfamewwork out of pressure treated plywood and covering that with wire mesh.

Prepped and ready to sculpt.
The attendies for this act, Concrete mortar mix, Portland cement, Fiber glass flakes ( for strenght) water, powerfull mixing drill (Milwaulkee Super Hole Hog) and misc trowels and sculpting tools ( sticks , knives, pointing trowel, stiff brushes and crumpled up alum. foil.
And the star of the show the base with mesh applied.

Just after applying the concrete,now it's patience. You have to let the concrete mix stiffen up before you can sculpt it or it will turn to soup and fall off.

There now it's starting to look like something.
While waiting for the concrete to set up I moved on to the base coat for the track and machine.
Prior to the base coat was a hand applied primer coat. This rimmer is so thick( like thin pancake batter) that it has to be brushed on, this process took me 3 1/2 hours , 2 1/2 on the tracks alone with all there nooks and crannies.

I decided straying the base coats (2) would be the best approach and was I right!
Now we wait for paint to dry. then on to the detail painting (all hand work) stay tunned.

Being able to create these types of projects is not only a challenge, it's really fun when they come together as you envision them in your minds eye.
The only thing better is when they exceed your imagination.
Below are some shots of the process as it evolved

Follow along as This baby matures, You can see here the start of the base.
Sculpting of the base to come.
A few more details to be added then on to paint.

Oh well I guess it's three pods.
I drew the pods and used sweep to rails to created the lumps for the peas. then created a flat raised relief of the outline of the letter then added a domed relief of the letter "P" to the raised flat relief.

Q has some techniques  I've wanted to try for a while now I used the texture magic bitmap for the log end background.
I then shaped the outline of the letter using a faded bitmap.
This bitmap is black and fades to white and back to black, when you apply the bitmap to a relief the hieght you give it basically leves the black alone and raises the white by the amount you set for the hieght, the greys taper from black to white. In this case I gave it a drastic hieght and the result was a pretty dramatic wave apperance.

The only way to get someone to know what dimensional pieces are is to show them. It's difficult to describe.
So Along with the alphabet project (which not only gave me some experience but also gave me a host of examples of what is possible), I keep building up my arsenal of examples.
This shot shows the reliefs and slices I designed that would be glued up to make this next example.

In addition to working with the router and urethane foam, and sculpting epoxy, every sign needs some type of support.
This piece is the base plate for the steel bracket I am fabricating and inserting into the Urethane foam.

Above you can see the bracket and final glue up of the sign, then using a mutitude of tools the edges and glue lines are cleaned up and any little bits that need tweeking get attended to.
From there the sculpting is done. I added the roofing to the middle steeple , the stone work on the cabin chimney, and the thatched roofing on the cabin.

The painting process is a fairly similar process in each sign, Primer, base coats, more base coats , details and glazing.

Finished off with a clear coat for protection and durability.

Some detail painting after glazing helps to make certian features pop.
Not the case on this one,I wanted this piece to have the aged appearence throughout.

I Made my life difficult with this little guy.
The basic design was fairly simple.
 The frame was artwork that I was able to import from "Smart Art Sign Layouts".
 Then I tweeked it a bit and whala. The problem "I" created was I should have worked the reliefs more. I didn't give myself many good sharp raised edges to paint to so the painting process was very Tedious.
Oh Well Live & Learn.

Being Smack dab in the middle of my "alphabet wall" may be the reason this one is the most popular?
Up to this point when picking colors my first thought is Contrast, Here I went a little suttler and the result seams to work and work well.

How to make an "O" interesting?
The font here is an Old English Font.
The Base relief is the weave texture from Dan Sawatzky's texture magic collection, applied to a slightly domed relief.
The "O" was sloped using a fadded bitmap also From Dan's Collection.
It's hard to pick up in this photo but look close and you'll see that the "O" is thicker on the right than the left.