The benefits to a small business in outsourcing artistic modelling work to others in the ArtCAM Community can be great. Grady Robertson is one such person to have taken this route and reaped the rewards.
Grady Robertson is a woodcarving hobbyist from Lubbock Texas who has shown how easily ArtCAM can help you turn your hobby into a business. After leaving his previously unrelated job in 1999 he turned his attention to building up his own wood working business with the intention of blending the latest CADCAM technology with traditional wood working skills to produce wooden furniture panels with low relief carvings for his clients.
As the fledgling business grew Grady looked for new ways to differentiate his products and work and after reading about CNC technology in a trade publication he visited a couple of other local shops that had made the jump to CNC.
Their success confirmed to him that this was the route he needed to take. After a 3-day visit to Thermwood for CNC and software demonstrations Grady was convinced that ArtCAM was the tool he needed to move his business forward. Seeing ArtCAM in action was a revelation,
"I wasn't aware that software, which could do the things ArtCAM does, even existed."
As his business continued to develop and time constraints became tighter due to the ever increasing workload, Grady who himself readily admits to not being an artist, found that he needed to find someone within the ArtCAM community to outsource some of the more artistic relief modelling work to. As a member of the ArtCAM forum Grady responded to a post referring to a relief modelling and 3D clipart library service called 3Dclipart.net. This service provides a large number of pre-modelled or scanned reliefs for purchase and also offers a custom modelling and scanning service.
Outsourcing is a great tool for a business my size. I outsource doors and many other items, so why not relief files and artwork. I like to concentrate on my strengths and let other experts provide me with the products they are specialists at."
Two of the most recent jobs Grady has used this outsourcing technique for, are the horses head and the praying hands. Once Grady has outsourced the reliefs he requires, he then uses ArtCAM's powerful tools to easily scale, size, position and machine the finished pieces.