hitchin - in another life i was a mechanical designer, mostly in the
simulation field. while jewelry settings aren’t the same as the ah-1
(cobra) or ah-64 (apache), there is a similar solution: photocopies
(xeroxes). they can be so faithful to the original that it’s amazing;
one really old time ‘draftsman’ tried to get me ‘gone’ (a female
doing man’s work! a female ranked above him! arggggh!) when he found
a handful of xerox copies on vellum out on my table & told the
project engineer that i had “been wasting all that time doing
unneeded work by hand”. guess who got ‘gone’? here’s a version how i
do it adapted for your situation: pick your best renderings of your
’standard ring shanks’ & scan a color copy of each style shank &
print them on your printer. if you’re not set up for that go to a
print shop with a color copier. on the copy of each style shank block
out the section where the stone would be (if the renderings are in
perspective you will have the farside prong tips floating in air!).
put the thinnest weight hotpress water color paper or even coloraid
paper (color paper adds punch) - any paper that will take watercolors
- into the paper feed & run multiple copies of each style. when you
want to show a client how a certain stone would look in one of your
shanks, grab a color copy, some aquatint pencils, some gouache &
detail brushes, gold & silver pens & fill in that blank space under
the floating prongs with the stone of your choice. with this method
you’re not re-inventing the wheel, just the hubcap; saves the time &
costs of buying & learning a new program & impresses the client with
your multiple talents - it also makes them feel as though they’re
worth extra effort. good luck -
ive