original art
 
from source:  
“This is :iconegophiliac:‘s artwork done up on wood! (with her permission of course ^_) Find the original here: fav.me/d4zbw0y
 
Whew, this one took a while! This was my first polished, “not-just-a-test-because-I’m-actually-going-to-give-it-to-someone” laser cut thingy! I used 0.125in thick Baltic birch plywood which I picked up at my local Woodcraft store. All of the shading is done as vector fills of varying shades of gray.
 
This print took 31 minutes to complete and days to figure out how I wanted to finish it XD I ended up going with a clear, water-based semigloss finish on the flowers, eye and hooves, 2 coats of an oil-based natural stain and polyurethane finish atop the entire piece, and a final semigloss layer for good measure on top of all of that. Switching between oil and water-based finishes necessitated long drying times, so I may rework the process in the future.
 
Word to the wise for anyone wanting to do something similar: you cannot sand the piece after laser cutting. The darkened areas are extremely shallow, and even my 320 grit sandpaper noticeably (and unevenly, I might add) lightened the wings on a test piece.
 
(I’m still trying to figure this all out, so some of the info here may be wrong or misconstrued. Sorry for that, I am still very much a novice.)
 
More images:”  
2014 March 14