Gadget, P.I. (Noir)

Noir Comic Version of Inspector Gadget using halftone dot silkscreen

Silk Screening

Silk screening is one of the most versatile of painting methods. It can be used on fabric, metals, glass, cardboard, and paper. Silk, organdy, polyester, or another mesh is stapled to the bottom of a frame while sealing tape covers the staples and extends past the frame onto the silk. A stensil is attached to the underside of the screen and the material to be printed is placed on the table with the screen over it. A generous amount of ink is put on the top of the pattern. A squeegee is rolled across the pattern, pulling the ink along with it, forcing it through the silk and onto the material being printed. Each color added must thouroughly dry before another can be applied.


Silk screening began in ancient China when printing designs onto their clothing. Then the process became patoned by Samuel Simon in 1907 England as a process to make decorative wall paper. Andy Warhol made the process popular in modern times with his image of Marilyn Monroe. Today, it is used for printing onto T-shirts.

Andy Warhol: www.warhol.org/collection/art/ being the most famous, is an excellent example in good silkscreen prints. His use of color and content speak for themselves as his work gave new life to this method in art.

Doug West: www.dougwestart.com/gallery/galleryLE.html uses landscapes to show his work in silkscreening. His blend of colors and print combinations make for a beautiful piece of nature.

Lawrence Rugolo: http://web.missouri.edu/~rugolol/ has been making prints since the 1960s. His blend of line work and print show adapts with the times. His figures mixed with landscape are also well done.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Relief Print of Frankenstein book cover

Relief Printing Process

Relief printing is one of the oldest forms of print making, the most common of which is woodcut. By cutting away uninked lines and shapes into the wood block, one leaves a raised image that will be used for printing an image. The raised surface is inked and pressed either by hand or another method onto a surface.



It was originally used for printing text in the fourteenth century, but a handful of German painters in the early 1900s revolutionized the process into its modern method.







Tools used in relief print: block surface for carving (wood, linoleum, plastic sheet, poly tiles, potato prints, etc.), cutting tools, ink, rice paper, and something to press (can be hand).

Prepare a drawing the same size of the wood block. Lay onion skin paper on the drawing and trace the outline of the drawing with pencil, keeping the stack undisturbed throughout. Turn the onion skin paper over and tape it to the block. Slide a carbon paper underneath and trace the pencil lines from the back of onion skin paper to transfer the design to the block. Because the carbon color is not reliable, fix the design with ink. Tint entire block with an oil color, which helps to tell the working of cutting tools when wood is cut away.

Start cutting from main images. The cut areas must be clean enough, for burrs catch unwanted ink. Woodcut produces images by scooping sections of wood off bit by bit. How the subtraction is performed is what woodcut technique based upon. More wood around the figure being removed by gouges to free the figure from the ground. At the finish give the block a light coat of ink for a preview. If adjustment is needed, wipe the block clean with a strip of soft rice paper before continue. Be aware that any cutting mark is a final decision.

When duplicating this process digitally, the key thing to remember is brush type and size. The eraser tool acts like a carving tool to erase away what will not be printed. Various widths and lenths and types of tips will help determine which should be used for various line qualities and results.

2D Cell Animations

Animators begin by drawing sequences of animations on sheets of paper perforated to fit peg bars in their desks, one picture or "frame" at a time. The animator draws enough of the frames to get across the major points of action. While working on a scene, a key animator will usually prepare a pencil test, a preliminary version of the final animated scene; the pencil drawings are scanned or photographed and synced with necessary soundtracks.

While the animation is being done, background artists will paint the sets over which the action takes place. These backgrounds can be painted in acrylic, guache, oil, or even crayon.

Once clean-ups and in-between drawings are completed, each drawing is then transferred from paper to a thin, clear sheet of plastic called a cell, so called because they were made from cellulose nitrate. The outline drawing would be inked and the reverse side would be painted for proper color, highlights and shadows. The transparent quality of the cell allows for the background or other objects to be seen behind.

When an entire sequence has been transferred to cells, each is taken and laid on top of each other with the background at the bottom of the stack. A sheet of glass is then placed on top to flatten the image and the whole stack is photographed. The cells are removed and new ones are placed in and the process begins again. Each photograph represents one frame of film.

Orzo: The Necromancer

(First) Model reference

(Second) Finished line drawing

(Third) Final 2D Cell Animation, Character Inked

Technical Skulls

My Technical Illustration of Skull