I’m not sure if this is even possible. I’ve been working on a thing where I paint the wood, put masking on it, after filling it on the laser, I run paint over the cut part with paint to darken it up.
I’m doing this Baby Yoda… Grogu…and it’s I’m trying to cut it at about 3" tall it’s filling are just too small and are often just a thin line.
I thought about going into illustrator, use a wider stroke, then convert the strokes to outlines to make the lines a little thicker. I started messing with it then got distracted and haven’t gotten back to it.
Resizing to get it a little wider isn’t really an option.
Is there anyway to slightly expand the lines in this image by a mm or so?
You can also try de-focussing the bed downward slightly which will make the lines wider. 1 to .5 mm lower light get you what you want. Remember the laser is de-focussed, and may not CUT as well, so do alyer of lines, then refocus that do any other layer you don’t want de-fcocussed.
I bought the file, so I don’t have anything other than an eps, ai, svg and pdf of the image. Could I use the pdf and trace it somehow instead of just normal fill?
Increasing line width on small detailed vectors can be problematic if trying to use “smart” tools like offset. These tools have no concept of the relationship between adjacent shapes so you may get overlapping or unacceptably narrow spacing.
Depending on the design and required adjustments, I may adjust individual lines by hand, occasionaly right down to the node level. Not infrequently, I also move the lines to maintain spacing. This is really a total redesign in some instances and must be tailored specific to each job.
Look at Grogu’s eyes in the black fill and blue fill of Bernd’s example above. His eyebrows and pupils and nose are problem areas. If you make the eyebrows heavier without regard to offset direction and shape placement, they start to blend into his eyes. His pupils start out very small and just get smaller. The “septum” of his nose is also starting to disappear.
The pupils and septum are EXTREMELY important to the “mood” of the piece. Shape/size/rotation/location of the pupils can change the character from “happy” to “angry” to “creepy”. The septum has a similar effect.
Ultimately, it depends on how critical you (or your customers) are as to how much time and effort needs invested.
I’m working on a piece now that’s already over 40 labor hours and three test burns with probably another 10 hours and two test to go before I even move from cardboard/chipboard to wood.
