Okay - Help! I carved what I thought was one of my better stamps tonight until I had to add letters.

How do you guys do it? Some of you have just excellent letters and I would really like to hear some tips, please.

Thanks,
Sunshine of We 5 Weeks

letters are hard!! :-) there are some good tutorials on them. But, maybe what I thought was a good idea for me anyway, was to start practicing letters or a word on scrap pieces of rubber in between working on stamps. I just had to start one over because of an "o", darn it!!-storm rider-

Cursive or script is much easier than block. The thing that really challenges me with block text is the letters with curves in them. It's not that I can't carve them, I can -- the problem is getting them to look like they match the rest of the letters! For some reason, I can get the whole job done and do a trial stamping, and an O or a C in the middle of all those letters somehow looks thinner than the rest of the letters, like the rest were all done in a bold font while that one letter was in a regular font. Aaaaaargh!

I just recently had to carve a whole mess of block letters -- some white on black and some black on white, all on the same stamp. Fortunately, this stamp actually came out great, all the letters look like the same font. I was lucky, only a small percentage of the letters had curves.

carve cursive letters. carve them with the stamp upside down. don't think of them as letters, they're just another shape. practice, practice, practice.

romana

Thanks, Romana that sounds like the best idea yet!! I was wondering why l can carve eyeballs and fingernails for goodness sake and freak out over a letter!! :-) -storm rider-

carve them with the stamp upside down.

I was just watching a TV show last night about a forger who copied signatures upside down. He stated that when you copy them right side up, you are trying to copy someone's font. When you do it upside down, it is like copying art which is much easier.

I have also always done letters upside down, now I have an idea why it works.

What Romana said, and get a good magnifying lamp. I also recently learned to needle carve (thanks RaqsEnigma for a great class at LBCon!) and that has made it easier to get fine details. :)

I've seen LBCon mentioned before, where is it held? Is there a link to info about it?

thx.

lbcon was last year
live and breathe the year before
They are not annual events

I think, especially with lettering, we all tend to want our product to be perfect. But, these are hand-carved stamps, are they not?

Cut yourself a little slack and do the best you can. All those 'imperfections' like the thickness not uniform, or the dots missing for the letter I only add to the character of the hand-carved stamp. I have said it before, but it bears repeating: if I wanted a perfect stamp, I'd drive to my local craft store and buy one.

just my opinion,
~SHH :-)

some tips

I use Mistral font, carve upside down and here is something that seems like it doesn't get mentioned sufficently...

Sharpen your nibs and blades. Often then more often and then sharpen again.

A sharp tool can carve any material...well maybe not plumbers gasket.

Don

Why Mistral font in particular?

Bluebirdlover

A sharp tool can carve any material...well maybe not plumbers gasket.

Or linoleum. Carving linoleum is more like pushing the material out of the way rather than cutting it. I fail to see why that stuff is considered usable for stamp carving. It's like carving silly putty.

because mistral is uneven, fat and skinny, and uneven in height also.

If your handwriting is at all legible, carve your own handwriting rather than a computer font. the carving will have all the "realism" of hand-written letters (because they are) and your hand will be easier able to follow the curves because it made the curves to begin with.

romana

Look Up the LBCON event in July 09. You can read about it there. There was talk about having it ever so often and a planning committee discussed but I do not know if it ever got off the ground????? any body else have a clue if it will appear again?

I was just watching a TV show last night about a forger who copied signatures upside down. He stated that when you copy them right side up, you are trying to copy someone's font. When you do it upside down, it is like copying art which is much easier.

White Collar is a great show. ;)

And I agree - don't look at them as letters. They are just another image to carve. Just don't forget to reverse the letters so that when you stamp it, you can read it correctly. :D

TG

I really liked SHH's comments about the "perfect" stamp. Thank you for that. -storm rider-

Why Mistral font in particular?

Curvy letters and it is just oddball enough that when you screw up (and you will) most folks can't see the screwup.

Don

White Collar is a great show. ;)

Thanks! I couldn't for the life of me remember where I heard it, I think I was drifting off to sleep and it stuck in my mind!

I really liked SHH's comments about the "perfect" stamp. Thank you for that. -storm rider-

You are very welcome, my friend :-)

Or linoleum. Carving linoleum is more like pushing the material out of the way rather than cutting it. I fail to see why that stuff is considered usable for stamp carving. It's like carving silly putty.

I carved a perfectly good image into speedball linoleum a few days ago.
It was much nicer this time than last time I tried about 2 years ago.