Practitioner research/inspiration…

I mentioned in an earlier post that i was driven to investigate and try out laser cutting my work on/into wood after seeing laser etched skateboard decks - they were done by Hydro74 a done few years back now.

Starting off with a skate deck painted with black gloss,they were then laser-etched, as a negative so that the black line work wasnt burnt away and the 'white' areas became exposed wood. 123KLAN also did a similar thing with their designs

These are what got me to thinking about possibly making an A3 image straight onto wood as opposed to a digital paper print. If the cutter is capable of replicating complex vector imagery like Hydro74, then it shouldn't have any problems with what I've got to throw at it. My style of work, with chunky vector line work is also more along the lines of 123KLAN's design, so i know whats achievable. I'd also had thoughts about painting the wood a colour before engraving that would correspond to each particular Luchador, but need to enquire about that with Michael and the Woodwork tutors.

If it turns out that colour isn't an option right now, then it'l still work as a straight-up engraving piece. For some time i've had visions of a wooden 'relief' piece, involving layers of cut out MDF shapes stuck on top of each other. I've recently come across a guy who goes by the name of Tougui, from France ( http://www.tougui.fr ), who annoyingly has already long since produced the sort of work i had in mind.(though i presume he wasn't the first to do this) His style in general isn't a million miles off of mine as it goes, he's just been more prolific with it.

Engraved wooden panel

The good thing about all the research i do is that i discover a whole new load of practitioners for the first time; the frustrating thing is that I've lost count of the amount of times I've come across stuff that i was planning on doing myself. So I'm stuck in two minds whether to pursue this line of production, as it looks like I've just gone on google and ripped someone else's idea off?!

Having said that, i thought i'd been following this guy on Instagram for years, but it turns out his work looks very similar to a guy called Ekiem, (http://ekiem.bigcartel.com) also from France who collabs with Tougui a lot. Guess it is ok to have a similar style as someone else then?

Tougui

Ekiem

Tougui x Ekiem collab deck