In this blog I will explain several different ways to create three dimensional letters; including one point perspective.  At some point in time, it seems like all pyrography artists create signs, or add sayings to their artwork.  My goal with this blog is to provide ideas that might help make your signs stand out or look unique.

Before we get going, I want to mention that you may see several different pen tips being using.  I have purchased some handsets that were not made by Colwood.  I need to get familiar with these handset and pen tips, so I use them on demonstration projects like this one.

Click on the image to the left to watch a YouTube video version of the tutorial. 

Where to Get Fonts

A very obvious option is to use a stencil.  There are a lot of stencils available at craft stores, art stores, and numerous places online.  There is a wide selection of font styles and sizes to choose from.

Another option is to use a word processing application.  Applications of this sort tend to have a lot of fonts to choose from, and a number of them allow you to enter a custom amount for the font size.  

To do this, just try typing the font size you want in the drop-down box.  Then press enter.  Not all word processing application support this, but I do know that Microsoft’s Word program does.

If you don’t have a word process program, there are numerous free font generators online. 

I’m not going to recommend any particular one because I don’t use them.  

1001 Fonts was the first search result that appeared when I googled “Free font generator.”   It has a spot where you enter your desired message to text for the sign.  Then you can scroll through the results to find a style you like.   There is even a slider bar to change the size of the font.

Most the free fonts I looked at had the option to type in a style of font.  For example, I typed in “scary” and what you see are the results of that query. 

What I don’t care for with 1001 Fonts’ site is that they want you to download your font results.  

I personally wouldn’t do that.  Instead, I would copy/paste it into a word document and print it from there.

Here’s another font generator.  With this one you can click on an option to the left to see fonts that match that particular theme.   The couple of font generators I put into this blog are just the tip of the iceberg.   

For some reason I didn’t think to search for 3D font generator until just now.  I had already written this blog and created the corresponding video.  When I did an internet search, quite a few site showed up, so they do exist.   

Most likely, you can do a search for whatever font style your after.    

How Every Style of Letting Begins

Every single style of 3d lettering I explain in this tutorial begins the same way.   I draw a guideline on the board, or in my case paper.   

I will be doing all of my demonstrations on watercolor paper, but I will often refer to it as the board since most of you would be burning on wood.

Then I align the stencil letters with that line. 

Afterwards, I begin tracing in the letters I need. 

 

 

If using a word document or online font generator, then print out the letters or words onto a plain piece of copier paper.

Flip the print out over and coat the back with graphite. 

I only coat the area with a letter versus the entire backside of the paper.

Next, position the printout graphite side down onto the board and trace over the letters.

Here’s how my letters look so far. 

Yes, the letters traced from the printout are not very dark.  I should applied more graphite to the back of the paper.  The important thing is that they are dark enough that I can see them.

Now use a writer pen tip, and burn around the edges of the traced letters.  

I want to point out that I close the gaps on the letters created with a stencil.  This looks nicer, and makes it less noticeable that a stencil was used.

Once you have burned around the edges of the letters, then rub over the letters with a pencil eraser to remove any residual graphite.

Here’s the final product. 

Now the letters are ready to be turned into a 3d letter.

Puffed Letters

The first style of 3d letter I will explain is the puffed letter.  This style looks like it is sticking up from the surface of the board.  I call it puffed because that is much quicker and easier to say than “sticking up from the board surface.”

This style relies on pull away strokes.   Pull away strokes are short burn strokes that start darker than they end, so they create gradient color.  

Always start the pull away stroke on the dark edge, and pull it towards the lighter area.

Rotate the board as needed, so you are always pulling the pen tip down towards yourself.  Burning in this direction makes it easier to control the results so the burn strokes are consistent.

When working on wider areas of the letter, increase the length of the burn stroke.

As you burn, slightly overlap the burn strokes.  This will help smooth out the results by making it harder to see individual burn strokes.   Re-burning over the area will also help.  Plus, that will further darker the edges.

After all of the edges of the letter are burned along, then lightly burn over the center of the letter.  Use any burn stroke you want for this.  I used either uniform strokes or circular motion.

It might be easier to draw in where you want your highlight or pale area to be on the letter.   Since I’m burning on watercolor paper, I’m using a graphite pencil to mark my highlight.

If I were burning on wood, I would use white charcoal instead of graphite.  White charcoal shows up better on wood and it will resist the heat of the pen tip.  It won’t block it completely, so try to avoid burning over it.  

Here’s an affiliate Amazon link to General’s white charcoal:  https://amzn.to/3a3GFfq

After the highlight is marked, then burn pull away strokes along the edges.  Stop the burn stroke once you reach the marked highlight.  

Keep in mind that it is completely up to you where you put your highlight.  It can be in the center of the letter, or closer to one of the edges. 

The only thing I recommend is keeping the highlight location the same on all of the letters when creating a sign.  Otherwise, it tends to look off.

Here’s how the letter looks once I was done.  It might be hard to tell, but the burn strokes do not overlap onto the pencil highlight.  

Here’s how it looked after I erased the graphite. 

The last thing to do is burn over the highlight.   It is up to you how dark you burn this area.  

The only thing I will mention is that the darker it is, the flatter the letter will appear.  

Or to put it another way.  The less contrast there is between the edges and the highlight, the flatter the letter will appear.  

The greater the contrast, the puffier the letter will appear.

I do want to point out that this style of letter doesn’t look as good on thin letters.  At least I don’t think so.

If your letters are thin, then make sure to keep your burn strokes very short.   It might be helpful to use a writer pen tip to darken up the edges.  That would increase the contrast.

Freehand Letters

Now I will explain how to create freehand 3d letters.

Start out with the front of the letter drawn, and the edges burned in.  Then start drawing short angled lines along the corners or direction changes on the letter.

Then draw a line connecting the outer tips of those lines. 

As you draw the line, do your best to keep the line the same distance from the letter front.

I’m finishing up drawing the line the connects the outer edge of the short lines. 

I do want to mention, that if you don’t like how the sides of your letter looks, then erase it and try again.   Since the edges of the letter fronts are burned in, they won’t get damaged.

Once the lines are in place, then using a writer pen tip to burn along the outer edges of the side of the letter.

Here’s how my letter looks.  The pencil lines have been burned in and an eraser rubbed over the area to remove residual graphite.

With this type of letter, I often keep things simple and burn it to a uniform color.

Since there isn’t a texture to be created, you can use any burn stroke you want.  

As long as all of the letters are burned the same way, it will look good.

Make sure to rotate the board as needed so that the edges stay crisp and clean.

I always make the front of the letter lighter in color than the sides.  The reason is that lighter colored objects appear closer to the viewer; darker objects appear further away.  

Since we want the sides to appear further away, making them darker in color will help create that illusion.

Again, you are in control of the angle you want the sides of the letter to have. 

You are also in control of how thick or deep the sides of the letters are. 

Don’t like how the sides of the letter looks?  Then erase them and start over.

Probably the hardest thing with this method is keeping the angle and depth of the letters the same on a sign.    That’s why I don’t make very deep letters using this method.

The nice thing with this style of letter, is that it works well regardless of how thick or thin the front of the letter is.

Offset Letters

The next style of 3d letter I will explain is offset.  While style looks extremely similar to the previous method, it is created a little differently. 

This is the only style of letter in my blog that requires a different method depending on whether you are using a stencil or a printout.   I will start by explaining how to do this method with a stencil, and then I will explain the printout method.

Place the stencil over the letter front. 

Then move the stencil around until it’s at an angle and distance you like from the burned letter.  

Note:  you need a translucent or semi-translucent stencil for this.

Once you’re happy with the stencil position, then trace in the letter. 

It’s okay if you overlap onto the front of the letter, but if possible I would avoid doing so.

Here’s how my letter looks. 

You can see that I stopped drawing any line that overlapped onto the letter front.  

Now draw angled lines that connect the edges of the letter front to the back of the letter.

Continued work.

The red arrow is pointing to one of the lines that needs to be ignored on the next step.  The reason is that this line will not be visible once the letter is burned in.  

If it is easier, erase all of the unneeded lines before you burn along the outer edges.   The yellow arrow on the right letter is pointing to a line I erased because it wouldn’t be visible.

Use a writer pen tip and burn along the outer edges of the letter.  Ignore lines that will not be seen.

Here’s how the letter looks after I burned along the outer edges, and rubbed a pencil eraser over it to remove unneeded lines.

Like all of the lettering, you are in control of the angle direction and thickness of the letter.   

You probably noticed that I tend to angle my letters towards the upper right.  For some reason I like that angle direction.

Here’s how the letter B looks so far.  As you can see, I didn’t avoid drawing over the letter front like I did with the previous letter.

Here’s how the letter looked after I drew in the connecting short lines.   

This looks a touch cluttered.  That’s why I prefer to avoid drawing over the letter front, but that option is not always possible.

Lastly, here’s the letter after the outer edges were burned in, and the unneeded pencil lines erased.

Just like the freehand style of letter creation, the offset method works with thin and thick letter fonts.

Once the offset letter is trace in, then draw the connecting lines. 

Here’s how the letter looks just before I burned it in. 

I’m not showing the burning in process because it hasn’t changed from the first letter I explained in the freehand section.  The letter is burned to a uniform color, and the sides of the letter are darker than the front.

Now let me explain how to use a print out.  

Above the black line are my letters that were printed on plain copier paper. 

Below the black line, I’ve got a straightedge aligned along the tops of the letters.

A was drawn line along the top of the letters.  This line will be used as a guideline to align the printout on the board.

I trimmed down the printout to make it easier to work with. 

I left a slight border around the letters. 

This is an optional step, but I find it helpful

Draw a line on the board where you want your letters to be. 

Make sure that the line extended well past where the letters will be.

Now match up the line on the printout with the guideline on board.  Secure the printout to the board, and trace over the letters.

Then burn around the edges of the letter front, and rub over the area with an eraser.

Next, draw a new guideline.  A green arrow on the right is pointing to the line I drew. 

This line represents how deep or thick I want the letter to be.    Is it necessary to erase the first guideline that was drawn on the board?  No.  I just like to reduce as much clutter as possible.

Also, draw an angled line from the first corner on the first letter to the new guideline.  A yellow arrow is pointing to this spot. 

Extend that line vertically.  This line will be used to help align the printout to the board. 

Place the printout on the board.  There are two things that the printout needs to be aligned with. 

1) The horizontal guideline needs to match with the line on the printout.  A yellow arrow on the left is pointing to the aligned guidelines. 

2) The first corner on the first letter needs be to aligned with the vertical line.  A green angled arrow is pointing to the spot on my printout.  Since my first letter was the letter ‘A’, it only had one corner.    

After the printout is aligned secure it to the board, and trace over the letters in their entirety.  

As you can see from the photo, there are many places where the back letter overlaps onto the front letter.  That is okay; especially since it can’t be avoided.   

Now draw the angled lines connecting the corners and/or direction changes of the letters. 

Then use a writer pen tip to burn around the outer edges of the letter side.

Ignore all lines that overlap onto the front of the letter, and lines that won’t be visible.

Here’s how my letters looked after I burned around the edges, and rubbed over them with a pencil eraser to remove the unneeded lines.

One Point Perspective Letters

The last style of 3d lettering I will explain is one point perspective.  Of all of the letter styles, this one is probably the most impressive looking.   In many ways it’s much easier to do than the other styles.

Draw a perspective dot where you want your letter to start from, or disappear into. 

To put it another way, this dot is where the sides of the letter will be angled towards.

This dot can be placed as close or as far away as your want.  The dot can also be place anywhere around the letter.  The yellow arrow is pointing to where I placed my perspective dot.

Next, begin with the side of the letter closest to the dot. 

Use a straightedge and draw a line from the corner of the letter to the dot.

Work your way around the letter checking every corner or direction change with the ruler. 

If the line will be visible, then draw it.  Otherwise skip over it and check the next corner.  One more thing.  Stop drawing any line if it should touch the letter front.

Here’s how my letter ‘A’ turned out.   

Look at the lines along the of the letter.  I have two arrows pointing to them.   

The yellow arrow on the right shows a line that doesn’t touch another spot on the letter front, so the line extends from the corner of the letter to the perspective dot.   

The blue arrow on the left touched another spot on the letter front, so that line ended at the point of contact.

If desired, you can shorten the sides of the letter by adding lines where you want sides to end at.

Here’s how that looks.  At this point the rest of the infinity lines can be erased.  The infinity lines are the lines that extend from letter to the perspective dot.

Something I’d like to point out is that the perspective dot does not need to be located on the board.  

A yellow arrow is pointing to the dot I placed off on the board or surface I’m burning on.

Even though the dot is located off the board, nothing changes.  Use a straight edge to draw lines between the dot and the corners of the letter.

Only draw the lines that will be visible.

Here’s how the letter ‘B’ looks. 

This last example starts out the same as the others by drawing in the perspective dot.  

What changes, is that I will be using a very inexpensive protractor instead of a straight edge to draw the line.  Note that if you don’t have a protractor, you can use anything that has curved or slightly curved edge.   

Here’s an Amazon affiliate link to an inexpensive protractor and compass set:  https://amzn.to/47vFKwy

  

Align the protractor with the perspective dot and a corner of the letter.  Then draw the line.

Work your way around the letter checking each corner or direction change to see if the line would be visible.

here’s how the letter looks.

3D Sign

In this section, I will briefly cover how to create the 3d letter sign I did.  Start out with your sign saying.  This is exactly how all of the letter styles have begun.

Then mark your perspective dot.  A yellow arrow is pointing to the location of my perspective dot.  

Next, start with the letter that is closest to the perspective dot!  Use the straightedge to draw lines connecting the corners on the letter with the perspective dot.

After you finish the first letter, then work on the adjacent letter.  

Make sure to stop drawing any line if it touches either the first letter, or another spot on the current letter.  

Here’s how the sign looks so far.   Notice how the face of the letters are clean.  Keeping them clean really makes this whole process a lot easier.

After the first row of letters is done, then work on the next row. 

Again, start with the letter that is closest to the perspective dot.    The entire side of this letter is visible, and we don’t want lines from other letters intersecting it. 

Work your way along the letters. 

Make sure to stop drawing any line if it should come into contact with another letter.   Working in this fashion will make it a lot easier to see each individual letter, and know what lines go with each letter.

Here’s how the sign looks so far.

It may be necessary to switch to a longer straight edge so you can finish drawing the needed lines.

Here’s how my sign looks at this point.  All of the needed pencil lines have been burned in.   

I highly recommend creating a pencil version of your sign before you start burning! 

This will give you a better idea of how you want your sign to look.  The pencil version is easier to make change on.   Plus, you can use the pencil version as a reference while burning the sign.

I like to start with the letter closest to the perspective dot. 

If the letter is curved, then I burn pull away strokes along the curved edge.  

This is the exact same thing that we did with the puffed letter.   Notice how I marked where I wanted the highlight to be.  My burn strokes stop when I reach the highlight.

The top of this particular letter starts out flat and then curves.  I used either pull away strokes or uniform strokes to burn it in. 

It’s important to remember that my blog is explaining how I created the artwork.  That does not mean this is the best or only way to get things done.  Don’t be afraid to experiment.  For example, you can burn the sides of the letters to a uniform color.

After the first letter is done, then I start on the adjacent letter.  

 

I made the sides of the letter closest to the dot lighter in value than the sides further away.   

Basically, I made the light source the same as the perspective dot.  I did this to make things easy for myself.   You can make your light source come from wherever you want.  That is something you would need to work out on your pencil version.

As I worked on the sign, I made sure to incorporate contrast anywhere that two letters touched.  

For example, I’m burning the edge of the letter ‘E’ to a darker color than the adjacent letter ‘R’.    

I did the opposite thing when the ‘R’ and ‘S’ touched.   The ‘S’ was pretty dark, so I made the ‘R’ lighter in color.  I did this just to make sure each letter was easy to see.

I burned the inner edges of the letters to a very dark color since the light didn’t reach that area.  At least it doesn’t on my sign.

Make sure to rotate the board as needed to keep your letter edges crisp and clean.

I burned the tops of the letters to a lighter color than the sides.  That was because I felt they would receive more sunlight on them.

Contrast

The last thing to consider is contrast.   Here’s how my sign currently looks.  The fronts of the letters do not stand out from the background.

Burn the letter fronts to a light tan color, and now they stand out wonderfully from the background.

I don’t recommend burning the letter fronts to a dark color.  To me this doesn’t look very good.

In fact, the darker the fronts of the letters are, the harder they become to read.  

Darken up the background and even unburned letter fronts really stand out.

If you do burn in the front of the letters, I recommend keeping the color on the lighter side.

IN CONCLUSION

That is it for this blog.  I hope I was able to provide some information that might be helpful for your project or a future project.  I actually think that creating 3D letters is kind of fun; especially one point perspective. 

The last thing I want to mention is that the techniques used with one point perspective can be used on many objects besides letters.

Until the next blog,

Brenda

Nov 21, 2023

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