'Doggy Tea Party' February's Riso Subscription Print breakdown (Patreon)

Hellooo! Today I'm going to do a breakdown for this three color Doggy Tea Party print that was made for February's Riso Subscription tier. 

This print was a REALLY sweet one and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to try something new by being part of Giant Robot Gallery's Canine Show! I don't usually draw dogs...or any recognizable creatures really! Just cats and frogs, I guess! It was a fun challenge drawing a bunch of different dog breeds with different personalities while keeping them fun and silly like my other creatures!

Thumbnail:
First I like to start with a super loose and crazy thumbnail of the composition and story I might like to tell.

Closer Sketch:
I usually turn down the opacity on the thumbnail and draw a tighter sketch right on top of it, as if I'm using a light box (I'm using photoshop, by the way)! In this sketch I'm figuring out poses, overlapping characters and finding more interesting shapes for the garden. I'm also figuring out the little story I want to tell, mostly just in how all the characters are interacting- or not interacting. 

Final Line:
Once I've gone crazy with the tighter sketch and worked out all the compositional problems I usually jump right into line art- sometimes adding other layers on top of it to work out even more detailed issues- like where the grass might overlap characters or where a plate of donuts might sit next to a character. Lots still changes in the line art stage.

Coloring:
Here are some side by sides of my PSD file so you can see how I color! It's usually 3 Groups of inks, each with 4 layers of opacities (I start with 25,50,75,100) inside of the groups all set to multiply. Like this:

(to turn these files into B&W for the Riso I go through each layer and turn the 'lightness' down to -100)

Color Sketching:
Earlier in the process I decided to do a quick color mock-up- just to see how I could approach this one!

Flats:
Once I'm finished with the line art I head into the color flatting. This is so I can easily grab shapes of color later and plug in the opacities of color I need while setting up my file for Riso printing. I usually don't bother actually choosing colors at this stage, it's supposed to be pretty brainless, so the colors get wild. As long as the colors are different from each other so I can grab individual shapes of color I'm in the clear.

Final Coloring:
One of the bigger challenges for this piece was settling on the color palette. I decided to start with what colors I knew I wanted- dark and light greens for the garden that surrounds the tea party- so I started there and worked my way around the piece, adding darker values next to lighter ones and making sure each section was varied. I originally wanted the greens to be a cooler temperature, something softer and calmer than the energy of the linework in the plants, but when I printed this with the Riso the blue came out way darker than I liked, so I lessened the blue opacity while keeping the yellow opacities the same so the garden became a much warmer temperature green...which I actually realized I preferred! It lightened up the piece so much, it was fun!

Above is the example of the print when it first came out- didn't love how muted and dark the garden was, especially next to the playful and vibrant dogs! This was my first pass- printed with yellow first, then pink and blue last.

Below is an example of just the blue and yellow together once I lowered the opacity of the blue. I didn't have to print the pink immediately because I just wanted to test how the greens would come out!

Below is a fun one- the yellow + pink upsidedown!

And again, here's the final! I didn't have to change the pinks or yellows at all this time- felt like a miracle haha. If you signed up for my Riso subscription before February first/paid on feb 1st then you should have received this print back in March!

As always, here's a little file showing the whole coloring process all together:

Thanks so much for reading! Let me know if you have any questions! <33 -nat