I am looking for opinions...

[Addison he/him]

Hey guys. I was wondering if I could get an opinion on something from someone with a good eye for design.

I am making a coffee table with a centerpiece based on the Allomantic Table from Sanderson's Mistborn books.

Here is the centerpiece.

It is 17" in diameter.

The symbols are milled to 1/8" of an inch and I am going to be filling them with 1/8" inserts stained a different color.

The trouble I am having is with the staining.

I made a quick little model of the project in Google Sketchup with two different color schemes.

Primarily light:

Primarily dark:

The model doesn't show the symbols, because I am using the free version of Google Sketchup, so i can't import the file, but you get the idea.

Also, the two 6" squares on the sides will have the symbols for the two metals that don't fit in the standard diagram (Atium and Larasium).

The symbols will be the opposite color of the circle or square they will be in.

So... Which do you think looks better? If you have any other ideas, I would love to hear them to.

Thanks for the help!

(While typing this up I looked at the model again and I think I am leaning toward the first one, but I would still love to hear what people think.)

(Also, I posted this same thing on the Dragonmount Crafter's board. So if you are a member there as well, you aren't going crazy.)

[Silus - Shard of Flame he/him]

I don't really know anything about this, but I'll toss my two cents in. I think they both look awesome, but given a choice I would say I like the primarily light one better. Having the symbols darker would be cool, then again, it would be more striking if they were brighter. Hmmm...

[Addison he/him]

I think the lighter one is what I will go with, but I will see if anyone has any ideas first.

Thanks!

[KChan she/her]

The thing to remember here is that the eye is naturally drawn to light colors before dark. That said, given that you want to emphasize the Allomantic table (as opposed to the coffee table part), I'd say go with the light version.

Also, you are awesome.

[Eri she/her]

Awsome!

And I agree that the light version looks better.

[Joe ST he/him]

that is flipping fantastic!

[Aashyma she/her]

I'd go with primarily light as well.

Please put up a pic once you're done!

[Addison he/him]

Thanks guys!

I'll be sure to post pictures when I am done!

[Adrienne she/her]

I would say if the designs are lighter than the table it would make them "pop". The insert picture you have is amazing! I would love to learn about woodworking. I've been debating getting a lathe one of the years to start a trying to turn.

[Addison he/him]

I am not so much into woodworking as I am into keeping myself from getting bored. After this I am thinking of learning a thing or two about bookbinding and making leatherbound copies of a series.

This table actually started out a lot larger, as a full sized table, but I decided that was a bit much. I was going to have Atium in one corner, Larasium in another and was going to try to get BWS's signature on two pieces of wood for the other corners.

[firstRainbowRose she/her]

Here's what your project reminds me of. I don't know if it helps at all, but I thought I'd link to it anyways.

[Addison he/him]

Do you have any idea how that was done Rainbow? I am having a bit of trouble with my inserts and that looks great.

[Joe ST he/him]

it was done by a TWG member in 2008 some time, he did quite a bit of mistborn art (Photobucket and DeviantArt)

¬.¬ *stalks*

[firstRainbowRose she/her]

I can actually tell you how it looked like it was done to me, which is that they were painted on, or vinyl stickers or something like that. I don't think they had planned on it being subject to daily wear and tear.

[KChan she/her]

Yeah, those definitely don't look like inserts to me. It looks like the markings were drawn on. At least the lines and symbols are nice and clean, though.

[PeterAhlstrom he/him]

Could the symbols have been burned in?

[KChan she/her]

Oo, now there's an idea. It's kind of hard to tell because the pic is sort of blurry, but that's definitely a possibility.

[Ego]

Just saw this thread! I'm a pyrographer (I burn stuff ), and I don't think this one was burned, though it's a little blurry - for instance, at the top there's a tiny semicircle missing from a symbol. Pyrography would be pretty hard to damage so precisely.

You could definitely burn this kind of design in, though - I've done similar ones using the spoon (shading) point of this machine: Link. However, might be hard to do if you've already made the space for inserts.

Anyway, great project - looking forward to seeing the finished version. </End silly woodburning diatribe>