Digital Rough Generation

After researching and receiving more advice from our uni print technicians, i thought it would help me time wise to create digital roughs of my 3 A2 lino designs in Adobe illustrator. Once these digital designs are complete, I should then be able to print them out on a Laser jet printer and iron transfer the designs onto my large sheets of lino, helping create an accurate line based design to cut into.

I began with my original scamps for my chosen cities Octavia, Baucis and Despina, taken from my chosen author Italo Calvino's book Invisible Cities.

'Octavia'

'Baucis'

'Despina'

 From these roughs I created more detailed roughs at a larger scale (A3) to scanin  at a high 600dpi resolution and work from in Adobe Illustrator. I learned from last year the importance of roughs when attempting a digital based design in Illustrator. (My home scanner is only A4 so to save time scanning at uni, I scanned the following design in 2 parts and re-assembled thm in photoshop. They are only roughs to work from after all.)

'Baucis'

'Despina'

'Octavia'

Once my hand drawn roughs were complete, I was able to begin the digital process. Despite having some experience of Adobe Illustrator from first year, it took some time to become re-acquainted. I used different tutorials found on the internet to help me throughout and this sped up the process considerably. 

Digital rough generation and process (in screen shots):

Despina (Slide notes: These notes explain the same process used for each of the 3 city digital rough designs.)

Baucis

Octavia

As I wanted to be able to refer back to my digital designs during the lino cutting process, i spent a little time editing my digital roughs, adding black for areas to be kept as block colour, and leaving elements and details white for the areas that needed to be cut out of the lino. Once i had done this, I mirrored/flipped my whole design vertically knowing that once the image had been transferred onto the lino, the image I would be cutting out would be reversed also. This would help when using my rough as a digital reference and the reversed image on the lino would now match up with the reversed digital rough.

Reversed final digital roughs:

'Despina'

'Baucis'

'Octavia'

Strengths 
Once again I really enjoyed the process of using Adobe illustrator and learning to use the various tools etc to create the rough digital image I was after. I love the clean lines this program generates and i hope that I am able to keep these clean and precise lines once I begin cutting.

Creating my roughs digitally was really helpful in keeping my 3 designs consistent with each other, centred, accurate and having these digital documents means they are easily editable and helpful as reference whilst I am cutting. Adding details digitally at a later stage when cutting my lino and seeing how they work within the composition before actually cutting certain areas will help me hugely and hopefully minimise mistakes.

The 3 roughs I feel, work really well as set. They include the city elements, author portrait and details from Calvino's book which hopefully show a unique, interesting and visually pleasing portrayal of the text.

Weaknesses
I spent quite a long time on these designs making sure each composition was exactly how I wanted it. I wish I had been able to add more of the high level of details I hope to achieve whilst cutting, such as certain lines to create texture and more of the areas I wish to keep block colour vs the areas I wish to cut out. I am hoping to be able to overcome this when I start the cutting/ carving of the lino. I just need to be pro-active and decisive in my decision making, use these digital designs as reference and not take too long. 

Next steps
Now to print out my designs and transfer them on to the lino. I am worried that the ironing technique may not work and wish I had tested this out at an earlier stage before starting the digital rough process. If it doesn't work and fails to transfer my designs cleanly and visibly, I can use an older technique of graphite transfer. The lino I have bought is light enough to pick up the graphite once i draw through my designs on to the lino so at least i have a back up option should the iron transfer process go wrong. I cant wait to start cutting.

Additional thoughts
I am a little lost with the animation element of this module. As mentioned in a previous progress tutorial with Teresa, I can create a mock up animation using roughs. As these roughs are now digital, it may be easier to do just that and hopefully get the hang of Adobe After effects. Once this rough mock up is created, i will have a better understanding of making my design move and hopefully then just add my final artwork in and voila-animation complete. (I am being completely optimistic here and hope that whatever issues I have with the animation, I can speak with Mike in IT for help.)