..while thinking towards embroidery-friendly drawings, i had an idea about flamingos which are truly amazing creatures and show a lot of funny behaviors predestined for comic. so here is the first sketch, tell me what you think:



cheers

Love the right one (only its feet are somehow strange - I know they are small in reality, but these look too small for a comic bird)

The left one is more serious, yet nice, too - but its right leg is too thin at the thigh (or whatever the upper part is called in a bird).

(A pity that you can't show the strange sounds they make in an image )

I like how the feathers are indicated on the right one. And the shortened or smaller body. But I like the pose (vertical proportions) of the one on the left. For head and facial expression, I think some morphing of the 2 together....or maybe these are meant to be 2 different personalities? If that's the case, the heads are perfect!

Yes, I agree with Moini about the feet. It looks like they are standing on tiptoes. It might be an opportunity to add more character, if the feet were oversized (although I realize there is some artistic trend lately, for characters to have undersized feet) (maybe oversized feet are cliche these days??), and I could imagine 1 foot where the toes are pointing up...like it was tapping it's foot, or impatient (or just goofy).

I'm not very familiar with flamingos....don't they sometimes stand on 1 leg? I can't imagine what the raised leg should look like. But you're probably working with some reference photos or something?

It seems like people have a love/hate relationship with flamingos -- it seems like people either love them or hate them (I've heard that in real life, they really stink).

Edit - Just had an image of the black tip of the beak looking like lipstick, for a female character!

hey guys, thanks for the replies! i've been tweaking the flamingos a little bit regarding your thoughts. and yes, they're maybe two personalities or just different types of flamingos. i like them both.



besides that and at first i picked the left one for the trial to embroider it onto textile. taking the steps of the nice tutorial by knobba (http://svg2embr.wasbo.net/index.php) and using the extension suggested by a guest (http://www.jonh.net/~jonh/inkscape-embroidery/) in this thread (viewtopic.php?f=20&t=4776).

this is what the result looks like. left and right next to the character you'll find the stitch path resulting from the tutorial of knobba, far right and left the result of the embroidery - extension.



as far as i can see, right now the result of the extension looks ok except some points of which i still don't know if the line management is ok or not.

.. been optimizing the drawing and converted the exported data of the workflow above to a output-rendering with the software of the embroidery - device so this should be pretty close to the real output of the machine. clicking the pictures below links you to the pdf - output of the embroidery - software. still doesn't look ok (a lot of stitch line crossing where it shouldn't) but i hope to optimize the output with your kind help..

rendered thread - lines:



vector - stitch - lines:

today i've been testing the patch on an old t-shirt. the result is still pretty whacky...



cheers

In german because i dont know the correct english words:

Klebt ihr da einlage von hinten drauf um die stickerei zu stabilisieren ?
Ansonsten ist t-shirt jersey nicht so das optimalste material weil es sich stark verzieht.

Wow, the result on fabric is so much different from the image!

Does the embroidery machine do all the work? Or do you have to guide the fabric with your hands? I would think the computer guidance would be much better than that.

OR.....could it be the quality of the fabric? Perhaps a much stiffer fabric is needed? I only know the words from old fashioned sewing machines. But it looks like the feed dog was slipping. The feed dog "feeds" the fabric under the needle. There should be settings to help control that, according to the thickness and/or stiffness of the fabric. Although this only comes from my knowledge of old home sewing machines, not industrial machines. But I do remember how hard it was to sew with satin fabric, because it's so slippery -- the feed dogs have a hard time grabbing it, and the stitch tension needs to be just right.

Is this a home machine which can do embroidery, or is it a dedicated embroidery machine, and that's all it does?

When I've watched sewing shows on tv, they often put some kind of backing behind the place where the machine is going to work. I don't remember why they did that. But I assume to help with feeding the fabric under the needle. Or possibly to help keep the design flat through washing and wearing, too?

brynn wrote:When I've watched sewing shows on tv, they often put some kind of backing behind the place where the machine is going to work. I don't remember why they did that. But I assume to help with feeding the fabric under the needle. Or possibly to help keep the design flat through washing and wearing, too?

Thats what i asked in german. I think its called facing and you can sort of "glue" it to the fabric with an iron, to stiffen and stabilize the fabric so it doesnt move around (shear).
Also jersey (the fabric used for t-shirt) is knitted, not woven, so its a lot more elastic than woven fabric.
Still, even woven fabric is kind of elastic, depending on the direction. Its especially flexible in the diagonal direction, which means that all kind o embroidery have to deal with that problem.
One solution is stiffening the material with facing.

Yes, there are some hints about this in Alexander Brock's raumzeitlabor wiki posts: https://wiki.raumzeitlabor.de/wiki/Rari ... s%26Tricks

^
Didnt see that. Reads like he knows what hes doing.

In german because i dont know the correct english words:

Klebt ihr da einlage von hinten drauf um die stickerei zu stabilisieren ?
Ansonsten ist t-shirt jersey nicht so das optimalste material weil es sich stark verzieht.

ja, rückseitig bügelvlies um zu stabilisieren. t-shirts und sweatshirts zieht man jedoch im alltag ständig an und hat somit eine alltagstaugliche projektionsfläche für kunst, also darauf sollte es schon einigermassen gut aussehen.

Wow, the result on fabric is so much different from the image!

Does the embroidery machine do all the work? Or do you have to guide the fabric with your hands? I would think the computer guidance would be much better than that.

OR.....could it be the quality of the fabric? Perhaps a much stiffer fabric is needed? I only know the words from old fashioned sewing machines. But it looks like the feed dog was slipping. The feed dog "feeds" the fabric under the needle. There should be settings to help control that, according to the thickness and/or stiffness of the fabric. Although this only comes from my knowledge of old home sewing machines, not industrial machines. But I do remember how hard it was to sew with satin fabric, because it's so slippery -- the feed dogs have a hard time grabbing it, and the stitch tension needs to be just right.

Is this a home machine which can do embroidery, or is it a dedicated embroidery machine, and that's all it does?

When I've watched sewing shows on tv, they often put some kind of backing behind the place where the machine is going to work. I don't remember why they did that. But I assume to help with feeding the fabric under the needle. Or possibly to help keep the design flat through washing and wearing, too?

yeah the result is quite different. the machine is doing all the work, you just have to setup the thread and the pattern. the quality of the fabric is very poor, a t-shirt washed 150 times which has also been testing ground for stamps for a while so this will affect the quality. so according to wikipedia the feed dog is pulling the fabric under the needle. the machine i am actually using (janome mc500e) moves the fabric tighten in a frame. so i could try to tighten the fabric better and/or stabilize it. and maybe the tension of the thread is too low.

this is a dedicated embroidery - machine for home use. many parts of it are also used in the industrial version.

the backing could be better, maybe it was too thin. beside that, the pattern lacks most on the digital side, as the conversion with the inkscape - embroidery - extension is cool but not perfect.

Yes, there are some hints about this in Alexander Brock's raumzeitlabor wiki posts: https://wiki.raumzeitlabor.de

i've been reading Moini's suggested tutorial which is really, really great - thanks for the link! if i look at the actual pattern, the stitch/thread - lining is pretty crappy so i'll try to improve the pattern with the techniques described there...

Didn't watch it, but maybe this video (talk by someone from the above mentioned raumzeitlabor about embroidery, German):

https://media.ccc.de/v/eh16-58-sticken_fur_nerds

could be interesting for you, too?

..many thanks for the link, that was what i'm looking for to get a basic understanding of the embroidery-process. the ccc-server wasn't available actually, but the video is also on yt.

some more flamingos:



cheers

dancing flamingos embroidery artwork, actual state of work. made a pen and paper sketch and traced it a couple of times.
working with pen and paper is a lot of fun actually, and with some practice, can look nice too..



cheers