Assignment 4 - Silk Screening Information

Silk Screening


If you have ever purchased a t-shirt with a decal or an image printed on it, it is likely you have purchased a screen printed product. Screen printing goes by many names, but one of its more popular names is silk screening. The term silk screening derived from the roots of the mesh used beneath the stencil. While in the past silk was used, today many prefer to use polyester. While explaining specifics about screen printing can be confusing, I will try to simplify the process into layman's terms.  


Common materials used in the silk screening process include:

• the screen (made of silk, polyester, etc.)
• ink blocking stencil of image to be printed
• ink
• roller/squeegee
• surface to accept the printed image (like a t shirt)

Essentially you have stencils for each color you want to screen. These stencils reside on the screen. Using a squeegee you drag the ink across the stencil, and the ink passes through the negative space of the stencil. The ink passes through the mesh screen, and adheres to the desired surface. That is about as simple a screen process as you can get. 

Here are a few screen printing artists:
Roy Lichtenstein -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Lichtenstein
Andy Warhol - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol
Variety of peoples - http://www.thefineartcompany.co.uk/serigraph/silks.htm



For more information see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_printing


I also found these videos helpful (It makes more sense when you see it in action rather than read about it.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bIwpPGs180&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j-Ld3L9c5E&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWOXl8MTGdU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r-jhdatxg4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPbt5vy68_k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f6AJviosWU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xgFY2ozUBY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vwB0l4jevA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj8S7SjF2h8&feature=related

Assignment 3 - Relief Print

Digital Relief Printing

This is my second attempt at creating a digital relief print. I found this style enjoyable, until I had to choose what two colors would represent the second and third colors. I really would like to use more colors, but I restrained myself to maintain the criteria for the class. Depicted are three characters from a game called League of Legends. Teemo, Cho'gath, and a Minion. Poor guy got the blinding shot from an unsuspecting Teemo.Cho'gath doesn't mind, hes about to have lunch.  

-Preston

Here was my first attempt/experiment:

Assignment 3 - Relief/Woodblock Print

Before taking this class, I had seen some really cool pieces come out of this technique hanging on the third floor of the Spori building. It was a process I found intriguing as I have studied Japanese Ukiyo-e prints in other courses here at BYU-Idaho. I love the textures and line quality found in many woodblock prints. Seeing the variety of ways to transfer the image to paper, including rubbing or pressing, my eyes were opened as pertaining to the textures that would be unique to each process. I thought it was intriguing the variety of textures that could be achieved, and the broad spectrum of line qualities that can be created using this process.

Here are a few examples of prints that I believe exemplify this 'style'. 

http://www.comollo.com/Images02/woodblock4115.jpg
http://chestofbooks.com/home-improvement/woodworking/Wood-Block-Printing/images/Key-Block-Of-The-Print-Shown-On-The-Frontispiece.jpg
http://colt-rane.com/wp-content/uploads/wharton_eshericks_woodblock_print_for_song_of_the_broad-axe_by_walt_whitman_1924.jpg


Here are some artists I found:
http://www.indigoarts.com/gallery_brazil_prints1.html
http://www.vagabondjourney.com/travelogue/woodblock-print-artist-justin-catania/
http://joshuaromestudio.com/

Assignment 2 - Futuristic Mercenary

This is the image I made for Digital Illustration to replicate the style of cel animation, using a scanned piece of line art and painting the colors behind those lines. I have done revisions but I was not sure if we were supposed to show our original image on our blog. In that light, I didn't want to cheat so here is the original image. Hopefully this is what was needed to fulfill the requirement of posting our image. Please let me know if you have suggestions I would love to hear from you. 

Assignment 2 - Cel Animation

Thoughts on Traditional 'Cel' Animation:
At first glance the phrase 'cel animation' may cause a state of nostalgia for different reasons. On one hand, you could be taken back to health class in high school. Watching how the HIV virus implements itself into the healthy human. On the other hand, if you are familiar with animation it will bring you back to the roots of modern animation and digital painting.


Cel animation refers to a traditional animation process using clear "cels" to separate portions of a scene (similar to using separate layers for foreground, mid-ground, and background in Photoshop).  This innovation allowed animators to make a character move through a scene without having to re-draw the background. This was important for many reasons, paramount of which was reducing the cost to produce animation. By reducing the need to reproduce backgrounds thousands of times, animation studios were able to re-use scenes.


Typically a cel animation is drawn or 'inked' on one side, and painted on the other. Here is an example:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/File-Inkandpaint.jpg


Once a cel is inked and colored, a special camera is used to photograph each picture. You will often see the use of 'cel-shading' in animations because of the inherent ability to keep the shadow shapes uniform throughout the frames. cel-shading is also found in many 'manga' and other graphic novels. The effect this workflow has made on entertainment is still around today as video games and movies take a cel-shaded approach to bring a fresh take on an older technique. Some of these titles include: The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker, and A Scanner Darkly.


For more information on Cel Animation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_animation (this was also one of my primary references)
http://www.ehow.co.uk/about_6692380_traditional-cell-animation.html (simple and easy to digest)
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMMRqyo5MJPXNBGC7hq-jUtKQlkPi5EXUTnYa8Pl2iE4cIZgfGU7miflb3FdYsHbvCO0qvKVoeW51Jh4ew64zgjEUaJZqzwo6JvMgC7G9ESNS7kcMQehHKSMvFqkFusgdHF5icsBebIHoB/s1600-h/nemo-all-layers.jpg (example from Little Nemo, courtesy of Joshua Abegglen)


A Few Traditional Animators:
http://joshabegglen.blogspot.com/ (he does other stuff too, but I liked his 2d work)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Williams_(animator)

A Few Animators who took it further
http://bobwilsonanimation.com/

Assignment 1 - Samsung Vibrant Technical Drawing

For this assignment, we were asked to do some research. A few of the questions we sought to answer include:  what makes a technical drawing, what tools are used in creating a technical drawing, and some examples of artists who create technical drawings for a living. 

Through my research I found several things which stayed consistent, and a few techniques that varied across a broad spectrum of artworks. I decided for my technical drawing, that I would do a drawing of my cell phone using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. After completing the technical drawing, I imported it all into Photoshop for the final composite. My idea stems from two areas, the first was to incorporate the idea of consistent clean lines found in a typical technical drawing. Second, I wanted to use the aesthetic found in architectural blueprints to unify many of the elements.  

I found that the pen tool was easy to use, however I recognize that the typography is in dire need of adjustment. Feel free to give any comments, I would love to hear them. Thank you for stopping by.

-Preston 

Digital Illustration 2011 - Assignment 1

For the first post in class, we were asked to research Technical Illustrations. Below I have included links to details on what tools are used with Technical Illustration, and a few examples of Technical Illustrators. 


Details on Technical Illustration Attributes:
http://www.ehow.com/list_6570934_tools-used-technical-drawings_.html


Technical Illustrators
Beau Daniels & Alan Daniels:
http://www.automotive-illustrations.com/landrover.html
http://www.beaudaniels.com/architectural-gallery-1.htm
Jim Hatch:
http://www.coroflot.com/hatch/portfolio1/8
http://www.hatchillustration.com/technical.html
Randal Burkey:
http://www.birkey.com/


A Few Observations: (mixed personal observations, and facts found on eHow as credited above.)

• Generally there is a heavier line weight on the periphery of the silhouette.
• Often times to show depth, the closer outline will be darker while the further outline will be a lighter value but it retains the same line weight. 
• From what I saw there is little value or color in many of the drawings, however color/value can be used to emphasize a particular area, especially prevalent in blow apart diagrams used in illustrated DIY walk-through.
• While in the past illustrations were hand drawn, today they are typically created using CAD (Computer Aided Drawing) which reduces production time and increases the accuracy.