Where to find artwork for engraving

[daniel coyle]

Hello - I have a chinese machine with Lasercut 5.3 mostly used for cutting. Just getting into engraving and want some advice on good places to source free or cheap artwork to practice with. I believe its called "Vector" art? I have google "free vector art" and gotten tons and tons of sites. A lot of them just shuffle me back to Shutterstock.com or end up requiring to pay for the download. Is this normal? Fine if it is and I am not allergic to paying for it but want to know if there is anything I am missing here.

[Dave Sheldrake]

*free download* and no cost are different Dan

I have a stack of vector stuff if it's any good to you? what sort of stuff you looking for?

cheers

Dave

[Tony Lenkic]

Daniel,

Try this site -------- www.vectorportal.com

[Tim Bateson]

Don't forget to look at Tattoo art and Scroll-saw art. Both tend to be vector, or easily converted.

[Dave Sheldrake]

+1 for Tim, Tattoo stuff is a great resource

cheers

dave

[Kevin Harris]

www.craftsmanspace.com has some very cool stuff

[Bill George]

I've found in the past "free" does not always mean free and if it is a free download look out for virus and malware downloads plus the every present Yahoo and Google tool bars. Darn hard to sort them out and keep them off your computer. Especially computers we need to run our machines. I'd rather pay for quality I can use right away.

[Eric Claiborne]

A note of advice about using "tattoo" art....most of the time it gets ripped off the internet, with the actual artists receiving no compensation or credit for their designs.
I have been tattooing for 20 years, and have seen my own and my peers ripped off for all sorts of things, (especially by the chinese) and people make the mistake of assuming the artists will not come after them legally.
If you own a laser and have no artistic ability, i suggest paying someone to design for you.
I'm surprised to find out how many people in this business have no artistic or design training before getting onto it.
Aside from text, we draw everything by hand, scan our linework, make adjustments in illustrator or photoshop to make it engrave cleaner, and send it over to the laser.

[Mary Geitz]

I use iclipart dot com. There is a fee for it, however. Once you pay, you have unlimited downloads during that time period. I subscribed for a year for about $50.00 and have received some really neat patterns and other vectors.

[Bert Kemp]

Things I don't understand is how it gets on the net in the first place in a form that it can get ripped off? I should think that if the artist doesn't want anyone stealing his work he'd not put it on the net in a form that was easily taken.If I was a tattoo artist and wanted to show off my work on the net I'd take pictures of the work I had done on the person I did it on and then water mark the picture and post it in a form that can't be copied. I certainly wouldn't post a detailed vectorized drawing of my work. That just screams here I am use me if you like.
We here on the forum make and share a lot of stuff and that's great but you don't see everyone posting everything they ever made. Come on guys I want you to post every CDR you ever designed so we can all use them. If I post a cdr I do it with the understanding that people are going to download it and use it, so I would think that any tattoo artist that posted a useable vectorized drawing would know and expect the same jmo

A note of advice about using "tattoo" art....most of the time it gets ripped off the internet, with the actual artists receiving no compensation or credit for their designs.
I have been tattooing for 20 years, and have seen my own and my peers ripped off for all sorts of things, (especially by the chinese) and people make the mistake of assuming the artists will not come after them legally.
If you own a laser and have no artistic ability, i suggest paying someone to design for you.
I'm surprised to find out how many people in this business have no artistic or design training before getting onto it.
Aside from text, we draw everything by hand, scan our linework, make adjustments in illustrator or photoshop to make it engrave cleaner, and send it over to the laser.

[Eric Claiborne]

Bert, you would be really suprised by how much it happens......it doesn't need to be in a vectorized format to take and make something else out of.....social media is the biggest culprit, pinterest being one of the worst.....i could take a tattoo line drawing someone posted, even if it was at an angle, and turn it around into engraveable art in less than an hour. most artists do not post on traditional sites anymore using flash and such as that form of promotion has become obsolete, and can't compete with social media like instagram as far as generating business. A close friend of mine just found out that an entire sleeve he did on someone had been snagged from social media by the chinese, and turned into giant waterproof temporary tattoos for sale on alibaba.
Taking every picture you ever post and watermarking it first just isn't the way it is anymore, not to mention it always looks like crap anyway....most people i see doing that anymore don't even produce work justifying the watermark anyway.
Two of my co workers had their tattoo machines they make custom by hand cheaply cloned by the chinese about 10 years ago to the point that most cheap chinese tattoo equipment you find on ebay are direct copies made from inferior components, very frustrating....nothing is safe anymore and i'm sure many memebers of this forum have experienced the same with their ideas.
Anyway, I didn't want to hijack this thread from the original topic, but after seeing my designs end up on tshirts i didn't authorize, i know that our art is often targeted for swiping.

[Dan Kozakewycz]

Interesting discussion here that is relevant to me as I design my own artwork for engraving, in fact my entire business revolves around it.

I am aware that some unscrupulous types may well be able to rip off my images and reproduce the artwork themselves which does worry me, but what can I do to show it off without this happening?

[Mike Null]

The watermark still makes it more difficult for those who want to pilfer artwork.

Though I don't have any proof that mine has been stolen I am quite sure that some of my proofs have been used by customers to shop for a better price. On the whole, and after nearly 20 years, I consider it a minor annoyance.

If you can find older versions of CorelDraw on Ebay or a flea markets, etc. they had very good clipart files. I have version 8 and it's my "go to" art file.

[Bill George]

Interesting discussion here that is relevant to me as I design my own artwork for engraving, in fact my entire business revolves around it.

I am aware that some unscrupulous types may well be able to rip off my images and reproduce the artwork themselves which does worry me, but what can I do to show it off without this happening?

Post the preview images online with low resolution and small enough its not worth any ones time to try to enlarge. Make the buyer sign an agreement they are not to be resold and for his own use, and try to sell on legit websites not eBay.

[Dave Sheldrake]

It's as bad with laser plans, you can spend literally 10's of thousands working on a design only to have it copied very quickly afterwards. It's usually the backstreet non tax payers who steal them and sell via ebay but at least one well known company has happily lifted some of my own designs.
Sometimes I act on it legally, sometimes I don't bother....but overall now I simply don't sell plans anymore.

cheers

Dave

+1 for Mikes thoughts, I have a 20 disk set of clipart from an old version of corel draw somewhere