I mentioned in the introduction to Pattern Academy that we would be seeing more of this photo of Mr. Holly. I like to use this photo, not because the photo is that great nor can a really good pattern be converted from it, but because it works well for an example of many of the processes we use in the development of patterns. So you will see this picture pop up from time to time during the tutorials.
Occasionally, usually in response to a request, someone will post a "pattern" with a disclaimer something like: "Here is my attempt, still needs a little cleaning up".
Many times that "attempt" is not a pattern at all, it is only a picture that has been converted to black and white.
Rare would be the case when a pattern would result from simply converting a photo to black and white.
When designing a portrait type pattern, usually the black (or dark color) area is the portion that is meant to be "cut out", that is the scrap or waste part, after the pattern has being sawn. In some cases, it may be desirable to create a pattern which would involve cutting out the white or light part, however, for this study the cutout will always be the black or dark color areas. The portion of the pattern that is "white", represents the wood or material that the portrait will be cut from. (i.e. the stock)
RULE #1:
The white portions or areas must be continuous through out the entire pattern. For a pattern to be cutable, you must be able to place a pencil in the white area and staying in the white area, draw a line to any other point in the pattern without crossing a black area. If there is a portion of white that you can not reach without crossing black, then that portion is referred to as a "floater".
[There is an exception to this rule and it will be dealt with later in the lesson.]
Rule #1 is so fundamental to designing portrait patterns that it will be the predominant subject covered in Part 3.
| The easiest and best way to explain and understand a concept is by breaking it down to it's most basic components. In this discussion that would translate as being one pattern with one floater. To establish our point we will use this chunk of plywood instead of paper and we will draw our pattern directly onto this piece of plywood. The pattern that we want to create will be a square border design indented from the outside area of the stock. |
 |
 |
Now suppose we measure in from the edges of our plywood and scribe a line equidistance from all four sides as indicated by the graphic to the left. With the pattern laid out, we will drill a start hole and cut the line. Of course you know what will happen. |
 |
We managed to create a neat little frame like the one to the left, but we also created something else. Yep, a "floater". That's it lying on top! ? ? ? ? |
 |
This would have been great had it been our intention but what we really wanted was for the center to stay put.
To accomplish this, there must be one or more "breaks" in the line that will allow the stock to stay connected after the cut is made.
With that in mind, we would need to redo the pattern so it would look something like this.
This design allows us to create the border effect but also leaves the stock intact. You could start drawing a line at any point on the plywood and trace to any other point without crossing the cut out (black) area.
This example is very basic and elementary but the point established is true with any pattern whether it be this simple or has 200 or more cuts. When cut:all the stock that is not represented by the black area of the pattern must remain connected and intact.
| This point is so important that we will carry the discussion further.
Suppose a friend emailed you this pattern of Mr. Holly. |
 |
 |
You are having withdrawal symptoms because you have not cut anything in the last 45 minutes so you print out the pattern and in your haste you just glue up the pattern and start cutting.
.....and this is the rewards for your labor. ? ? ? ? Obviously, something went wrong. |
 |
| You dig around in the sawdust to find the "missing parts" and reconstruct the scene of the accident, and this is what you discover. You discover that your ex-friend didn't know how to design a portrait pattern. lol
The red blobs indicate "floaters".
You are now faced with a decision. You can either glue the missing pieces into place or start over.
Being a true professional you opt to start over. This time you open the pattern in Paint Shop Pro and do some repair work on it before proceeding with the cutting. With a few strokes of the paint brush tool to ?connect? the floaters you are good to go. You have also decided to crop the lower right corner of the pattern a bit. |
 |
 |
The repaired pattern is printed, glued up and cut again.
Much better! |
 |
But wait a minute!
 |
Isn't there still something wrong with the repaired pattern?
It does not appear that you would be able to draw a line from the blue dot in the upper left to either of the blue dots in the lower right without crossing a black area. (Rule #1)
This is the exception to the rule that I mentioned earlier.
If you can visualize the pattern superimposed over the finished cutting above you can see that the border formed on the pattern by the edges of the paper are negated when glued to the stock, which is wider than the pattern. So in actuality, those two apparently disconnected portions at the lower right side of the pattern are still connected to the stock, and therefore are not considered "floaters".
|
In practice, we don't have to take a pencil and start tracing to locate "floaters" as we go about designing our patterns. True we have to locate any and all floaters but there is an easier and more foolproof way to handle that task .
The tool that we use is the "Flood Fill Tool".
|
As we look at our repaired pattern again, we will see how this tool works.
After picking up the "Flood Fill Tool" and setting the tolerance about "50" we will choose any color from the "Materials Palette" except black or white. I'll use blue.
Now, we will execute the fill command by clicking anywhere in the white area; I clicked about the area where the blue dot in the upper left corner was. The blue fill color will flood the white area with the blue paint until the flow is stopped by a "black" area. Just like in our exercise in Part 2. This flow of blue paint goes in all directions until it is stopped by a black "dam". |
 |
You will notice again that the two white areas in the lower right did not fill, but as was explained above, these are connected to the outside border of the pattern and are not considered floaters.
Now observe as we try this same flood fill exercise with the original pattern our friend sent.
| This graphic shows that pattern with the exception that it has been cropped to match the repaired pattern. Now the flood fill is apply at the same position as in the pattern above.
The area that is left white reveals the "floaters". You will notice that these white areas are the same areas that were marked with the "red blobs" further up the page.
If this example had been a complex pattern with many cuts, all the areas that were connected to the border would also need to be flooded to insure that they did not contain floaters.
Once the flood tool has been applied and there are no white areas remaining, you can be assured that there are no more floaters in the pattern. |
 |
Now that we have learned how to locate and identify floaters, the next mission is to "destroy" them.
Of course, we do not literally destroy these isolated white areas but by connecting them to the main white area, they are longer a floater but an integral part of the pattern, so in effect they have been destroyed.
The removal or tying in of the floaters is where your skills as a pattern maker are exposed. This skill is the most important part of designing a scrollsaw pattern and will determine whether it is a really good pattern or just okay.
Many designers like to produce "killer" patterns with a zillion cuts. While this type of pattern is entertaining, the simpler patterns are much more in demand but at the same time they are much harder to produce. Yep, that is right, usually a good simple pattern requires more pattern making skills as well as more time to develop that those "mind benders."
A good pattern should have enough cuts, and enough negative area, to produce good details and depth but not so many that the subject is lost in the complexity of the pattern. Of course, as with anything else, there is a place for these complex patterns and there are also people that only want the harder to cut patterns.
As we have seen above, a floater is "tied into" the rest of the white of a pattern by either extending the white area or reducing the black area. The end results are the same. That is, white is connected to white (or the pattern's border). In this discussion these connections may be referred to as ties, bridges or connectors. All will mean the same thing.
Looking at the example above of the repaired pattern, we can see that the floaters were tied to the surrounding white areas with the paint brush with color set to white. Various size bridges were painted in to form the connectors.
Normally, when tying in floaters, the bridge needs to be as narrow as possible but not so narrow that the connected piece is unstable. When practical at least two bridges should be used to stabilize the piece. However, this is often not possible without creating too much distraction. Especially, if the area contains facial features.
| The best method for learning this process is by modifying coloring book pictures into cutable patterns.
While working with the coloring book pictures you will gain a working knowledge of the paintbrush tool, the fill tool, the materials palette as well as a number of functions on the PA Bar. I know that everyone is interested in the conversion process, but that is actually a minor part of our design work. However, it will be dealt with in detail in future tutorials. Now let's see if we can create a scrollsaw pattern out of this Piggy!
|
 |
 |
Strictly outline patterns make boring cuttings. Black is needed to give depth and character to a cutting.
So first let's work a little more black into our subject picture. That's better. The black was added using the flood fill tool. When using the flood fill tool, if the tolerance is not high enough to get a good solid fill, click again in the same place. This is preferable to using a high tolerance setting. |
| Now picking up the paint brush tool set to white we will began opening up some of the outline so that all areas connect. The size of the brush will be adjusted according to the width of bridge we want to create.
There is not a right or wrong way to create the bridges. That is determined by you as you experiment and discover what looks best. You may try one location for a bridge, if it doesn't look right, just click on the undo button to remove what you have just painted and try another approach. Just remember to try to keep the pattern so that the resulting cutting will be as stable as possible. If you can use two bridges that is good. If not then a fairly wide bridge is okay. Here is one possible interpretation. ? ? ? ?
But before sending it to the printers, the pattern needs to be checked for floaters.
|
 |
Rule #1.1 Always do one final fill to check your work before releasing the pattern.One small floater remains. Although easy enough to fix, had it not been detected, the mistake could have ruined a cutting.
Although this pattern would be cutable after connecting the remaining floater, upon closer examination we will notice that there are other problems that need attention.
- The head is supported by only two narrow bridges at the crown. This would be very unstable.
- The entire distance between the top of the head and near the bottom of the back foot is unsupported. Again, this is too weak.
- From mid-back to the left side of the foremost foot is unsupported. Ditto
- Also, the area between mid-back and the top of the head needs more support
As you can see, the addition of the third color made these weak areas easier to spot. Back to the drawing board.
|
 |
 |
With the floater destroyed and the weak areas strengthened, we now have produce a good usable pattern ready to cut.
Just because we are working with cartoons, please don't consider these exercises as child's play. These are the exact same procedure you will be using when doing photo conversions. The purpose here is to allow you to become accustom to these procedures and comfortable with using the tools without becoming distracted by the conversion process. |
 |
| Practice Project: Locate at least 3 Coloring Book pictures to convert to patterns using the methods described above. These pictures may be downloaded from the web or scanned into your computer. One good site for coloring pages is: http://www.coloring.ws/coloring.html. Download the pictures to your computer, then open the pictures (one at at time of course) in PSP and perform the task of modifying them into scrollable patterns as outlined above. Note: while the pattern is being made you can save it as a pspimage. This will retain all your settings if you need to close the program and return later to finish. But when the pattern is finished select "Save As", name the pattern then choose the jpg or gif file format. |
Please allow me to reiterate: don't take this tutorial as being too simplified. This will be one of the most important parts of this study.
Have Fun!
