Engraving Through Black Paint to Reveal a Space Scene

Oct 14, 2026 Last reply: 1 day ago 4 Replies

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Nate_Zinc 3 days ago

When this build works, the payoff is a canvas that starts as a plain black panel and comes out of the laser showing a colorful space scene: a big cratered ringed planet, a glowing nebula core, and a crescent orb tucked in the upper corner. The trick behind it is simple to describe but clearly took practice to get right. A canvas is painted white, splashed with random patches of color, coated black, and then the laser vaporizes the top layer in tight raster lines to uncover the hues underneath.

The layering is the part that stands out to me. The maker used studio stretched cotton canvas, eight by ten inches, and built up a thick white base coat in sweeping horizontal passes. Over that dried layer came abstract patches of color with no set pattern, drawn from olive, tan, dark brown, black, pink and red spray paints, with a note that blues, greens or reds can be picked to suit the final image. A ColorPlace fast dry can provided the white base and another ColorPlace can the black top coat, applied outdoors with the canvas flat on the ground.

The finishing details show real care. A hair dryer was moved constantly over the surface to dry the wet colors in about five minutes, and the paint was checked by hand before engraving. The black top layer was deliberately kept thin rather than heavy, and the machine ran at 70 to 75 percent power with speeds between 6000 and 10000 mm/min.

One open question remains: one canvas had spots where underlying paint reacted through the black coat, and the maker engraved it anyway to compare against a clean one, but the final look of that flawed piece has not been shown. I would genuinely like to see how that comparison turned out. The maker has also said more techniques are coming after several earlier attempts that did not work out, so this seems like a method still being explored.

Sharing the whole process, including the wasted canvases from trial and error, is a generous touch. The maker clearly wants others to skip those mistakes and try it for themselves.

Project by I Engrave, You Decide. Watch it on their YouTube channel:

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ChiselMike74 3 days ago

This is a really appealing result. I am curious about the drying stage: when the colors were still wet indoors, how long did the hair dryer step actually take before the canvas was ready for the black coat? I ask because getting moisture out of layered spray paint without disturbing the patches sounds like the fiddly part of the whole sequence.

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CopperJake95 2 days ago

Keeping the black top coat thin rather than thick strikes me as the smartest single choice in the whole build. A heavy layer would take far more laser energy to punch through, and that risks scorching or unevenly exposing the colors underneath. The trade-off is that a thin coat needs careful, even coverage in both horizontal and vertical passes to stay opaque, but the finished planet and nebula suggest it paid off.

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rlowry_1976 2 days ago

A variation worth trying: since the maker notes the patch colors can be matched to the intended image, I would lay out the colored patches roughly where the planets and nebula should sit before applying the black coat. That way the revealed colors line up with the design instead of depending on random placement. It would take a bit more planning up front but could make each finished piece more predictable.

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lmckay 2 days ago

The maker has covered the drying question in the shared process. The white base coat has to dry fully, either in sunlight or with a blow dryer, before any further work. When the colors were still wet, a hair dryer moved continuously over the canvas dried it in about five minutes, and engraving followed immediately. The paint was also checked by hand to confirm it was completely dry to the touch before the laser ran.

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