I had the bright idea of inking the outlines ONLY and then filling in all the shadows and the rest of it in photoshop so if I made a mistake (which I knew that I most definitely would) it wouldn't be the earth shattering armageddon it would be had I made a mistake with the pen and ink. Great idea Rohan, greeeeeeat idea. As I'm not a master digital ink ... guy then it took awhile to get used to, especially since I'm so used to the ol' pen and ink at getting smooth lines and curves. Also since I didn't have a perfect reference, just an idea of the lighting I wanted, I had to do a lot of trial and error. That's mainly where the digital inking came in handy, being able to add and subtract shadows to see what works, rather than just giving it a shot and hoping to hell that it looks ok, you just can't overwork the paper otherwise it gets all shitty. Above you can see split of the original hand drawn inks and the final photoshop shadows, it's drastically different to say the least, adding a lot of depth and really giving you a sense that the light source is below and shining upwards, with the black of the background (ie: shirt) cutting into the forms of the figure. One thing I don't really dig is when people get lazy and put outlines around everything. It's basically a sucker's way out, instead of really working with the forms and shadows you've got to describe the scene you just put black wherever and then put a white outline to indicate the background (shirt) from the foreground (design). This flattens out the whole thing and makes it feel like its a sticker or something, sometimes it works, with typography for instance, but with a design like this it would ruin the illusion that the design is 'sinking' into the background/darkness/void. So basically I didn't do it and it made my life harder.
After the nightmare and almost a week of consecutive night's worth of not-as-bad-as-you-think-it-would-be sleep deprivation was over it was onto the finishing touches, like the background. I wanted to do something that didn't fit completely with the reality of the scene, what I mean is all the objects and figure in the scene exist in the same space and perspective and I wanted to have an abstract element, something that didn't sit in the scene, but merge with it. In other words some kind of weird floating design element. I had a quick look on the interwebs and found some occult imagery to go with the theme and proceeded to treat it with some textures and layer masks to get it into the scene and not be too overpowering. Wow that was easy, why can't it all be like that? Oh that's right because I'm not a freakin' biter who relies solely on ripping off stuff of the interweb for 100% of my designs, that's why.
It was looking finished compositionally, but it lacked something. Even though I wanted it to illustrate this sacrificial scene, with an evil witchy chic in the process of some sort of black magic ritual it still didn't feel right as it was. The answer, as it is most of the time is: add some texture! I like giving most stuff I do some kind of textures, whether it's some really subtle mimicry of a rubber stamp or making the design look like it's been tortured in a russian gulag for most of it's life after being wrongfully imprisoned over some sort of political debacle. It adds that little extra that makes it feel more natural. In some cases there is no need to get a design all gritty, but this was definitely a time to get my hands dirty, just not too much. I added some splats and drips, to reference the blood used in dark rituals and other such liquids or secretions and also ate away some of the white to let the black come through. It helps to cut through the clean lines and shapes to give the design a more natural, random feel.
After all that it was off to the screen printers to get the screens made. Another thing that reeeeeally get's my goat all pissed off is when people have a design that works great as a dark print on a light coloured background and then proceed to INVERT IT and print it on a dark coloured background. THAT DOESN'T WORK. How can you have a shadow as lighter than the darker background?? Answer: YOU CAN'T, YOU ARE AN IDIOT. There's 2 ways around this predicament; 1. Be a lazy moron and just put an outline around everything, like the pathetic hack you are, you only deserve my utter contempt. 2. DO ANOTHER DAMN DESIGN. I knew I was going to be printing on a dark coloured background so I made sure it worked. What you see above is what the screen actually looks like, the black is where the ink will be pushed through the screen and the white is where it won't. It's an inverse of the final product. If I was to ever use that screen to print a dark coloured design on a light coloured background, shoot me in the face.
Cheers
Roh
No comments:
Post a Comment