On The Mountain Garden Trail ~ New Risograph print coming to January print subscribers! (Patreon)

Hello!! My new print is finally finished! I’m calling it ‘On The Mountain Garden Trail’ and it will also be featured in the Giant Robot gallery store in a show called ‘The Fruits and Veggies show’ here in Los Angeles. If you’re in town go check it out!! I was already working on this print when they asked me to contribute something to the show so it was fate!

When I first started this piece I was just rolling off my character design job and wanted to break all of the character consistency rules I had to adhere to for a year on the show. It was refreshing to draw characters that were entirely in my own world again.

Because I was excited to draw my own characters again I totally went overboard with the line art and made an extremely complicated piece for myself to color. It ended up being a fun challenge to work on so many different elements at once and try to make them all come together cohesively. When I finished the line art for it I was so afraid of how complicated the coloring would be so I made the flats very simple so I could bounce back and forth easily while I was coloring. I worked it out one section at a time, slowly building the opacities on top of one another to make the print. It took a long time but I was mostly happy with the final- I knew a long printing process was ahead of me, though. Not all values that look good digitally translate to Riso values. It requires tweaking after printing.
Here's what the final digital color looked like:

This print really took a journey to complete the printing stage. I printed one test print at a time and took it slow but tried to finish all of the printing in one day so I wouldn’t forget any tweaks. Finally, after steady printing and staying focused, I reached a place in the print where I couldn’t find anything else I wanted to change...which is usually when I end a print. 

I ended up making eight variations of this print, which means I used 24 masters and about 100 sheets of paper in the process of testing values. I always print about 5 test/thin sheets and then 15-20 test prints on my final paper to see how it’ll turn out in the end, especially since my final paper has a natural white and smooth finish (Crest Natural White Paper), while my test paper is solar white. If I don’t use the back sides of the final paper test prints for more testing (which I usually don’t because the back sides sometimes get marks on them while printing the front sides) then I’ll turn them into business cards later! I never feel bad about making too many test prints, especially since they’re so important to my workflow.

The reason why I had to test 8 masters is 1. because my value structure was weak to begin with, so I paid for it in masters $$$, and 2. because my machine prints slightly lighter pink and blue than what I expect (while it prints the correct values in yellow which is why the yellow is so saturated in the first prints), and 3. because I saw colors I liked that the Riso made which I hadn't intended and tweaked my print to suit them. An example of 3. is the way the circular flowers are a light pink in #1 then change to a light orange in #8 after realizing I needed a lighter value and really falling in love with that light orange next to the pale dark green. 

Every time I print a new variation of the three colors I compare it to the last print and make notes, then bring the notes back to the computer with me and get started on the value tweaks. Because I keep a flats layer (seen below as layer ww) I can magic wand tool a shape in my design in the flats (while flats layer is turned off but I've highlighted the layer so I can still grab with my magic wand tool) and add the color/value I want to the correct opacity layer there. Here are a set of example steps: magic wand tool-(turn off contiguous and sample all layers at top)-select the color shape you want to add color to (all fruit)-go to Pink Group, opacity 25%-choose the pink color from swatch or another area of the layer with pink on it already (you always want the same pink)-with magic wand tool still selecting your shape, paint bucket tool/fill that area with the pink- it will now be a 25% pink in the fruits shape. Then continue from there! Building opacities on each other like a painting. Make sure your layers are set to multiply!

I'm working on a video now for this one so I'll be updating everyone with that soon!

Here are some photos of my file setup:
This one shows my flats, they're crazy colors because the colors don't matter. My goal here is to cleanly separate the shapes of color.

Below is an example of what all my colored layers look like on top of one another! You can see my blue, pink and yellow groups are visible here. All set to multiply so you can see how the colors will interact with one another (same as Riso)! You can also see how I add more opacities than just the original 4, they get a bit complicated! I add so many opacities because I am testing so often. Sometimes I don't know if I want to make a shape yellow or not! Maybe it'd be better as pink! This way I can move certain layers I'm unsure about around and change their opacities at will. Sometimes I color the entire image in only my 4 original layers and then pick out of them to swap colors around (magic wand tool my flats layer, copy and delete certain shapes in the opacities layers, paste them into their own layer). I try to name all my layers, but I usually just end up remembering what they are and going from there.

Here's an example of what only the Blue Group layer looks like turned on! It's the same view as above, but only showing all the blue opacities. 

Below is what the blue group looks like when I turn the lightness down on each layer. Before I do this I usually copy all of my layers and add them to a new group- one called color and one called black and white (bw). Notice how I had to copy the blue layer 3 times? That's evidence of my tweaking after the Riso didn't read the values as I wanted, so I had to make the blue darker in steps. 

So it goes like this:
-Line
-Flats
-Blue Group (inside the group are my various opacities of the ink I want to use)
--25% blue
--50% blue
--75% blue
--100% blue (I start with these three opacities, then branch out with gradients and in between opacities)
-Pink Group
--(all four opacities)
-Yellow Group
--(all four opacities again)

Here's another example of the yellow group with all of the opacities turned to black.

Ok! Video coming soon! Next I'm finishing february's print and March's prints at the same time. If you're in the Riso print tier you'll be receiving this print soon!

Thanks so much for your patience while I catch up on these prints! Extra goodies (stickers!!) are coming for each package for the wait. Thank you!!!

xx
Natalie