Print Processes - stage 2 - Plans for Sublimation

 I have decided that i want to do a sublimation print for one of my final ideas. I thought that i would experiment further with robots because i have used them in my work ever since the start of this project. Sublimation printing gives me a lot more freedom when it comes to my image making and style of working. I can work using any medium i want and then scan it in and print the image as it is. I thought i would use this print technique to my advantage and work using some of my preferred techniques. I planed to design four different robot like characters which would all feature man made or nature like characteristics. This first robot is an underwater bot and has living coral and shells on his arm, i coloured this one using watercolours and picked out the detail with a fine liner.
I love working with water colours simply for the reason that i have never been much of a painter due to the wild tendencies of paint. I find that watercolours allow me to control where the darker tones go and they also blend really well.

This one was designed using only a fine liner which allowed me to get some really nice shaded lines thus giving my character some depth, this robot was meant to look like he is made from pipes and exhausts.
I thought that the line work would really test this print process to it's limit, i really wanted to see how much detail i could get away with before it became a mess. I also think that putting this robot next to one of the colourful ones would really make both of the character s pop off of the page. 

This is my wooden robot inspired by the wooden version of Bender from Futurama. I had the opportunity of meeting the famous Brian Froud the other day and seeing how he works really inspired me to draw one this way. His sketch books were full of beautiful pencil drawings and some were coloured in which completed the books beauty, the contrast between the colour and the black and white really looked good. So later that afternoon i started my plans for this guy!
The rough paper that he was drawn on works well for this image because of the bumpy textures that i got when i coloured him with graphite. He then has a light layer of colouring pencils layered over the pencil to give some really earthy tones. The little vines are drawn with a fine tip pro marker and his details are etched in with a dip pen and ink!
really like how this one turned out and really fits in with the nature theme. his eyes could have done with being a bit brighter but i chose to ignore it to make him look more natural as if his face is the tree.


















This is my final design for the robot pattern, and he is the jumping ocular hydraulic nomad, or J.O.H.N for short.
When i drew out some character ideas for the summer show poster i ended up drawing an elf like character, i wanted to develop him for my own personal work so i drew him out a robot friend, and this is him.
he is drawn and coloured using photoshop, he sort of fits into the steam punk theme therefore making him industrial. I really like the detail on his arm and it was really fun to draw out. I like his rustic colour palette and the patches give him a real worm look. the use of steam confirms that he is a machine though he does have water in his wrist tank. He also comes with a compass on his chest which is a man made item that works on the magnetic energy of the earth allowing him to fit into nature and man made themes.   

This is my final design for the sublimation print, i staggered them all in photoshop and made sure my sample measured up before using that image to then repeat my chosen pattern. it turned out pretty good though it was hard to get them to perfectly fit on the page without cutting off parts of the characters. When i drew these guys out i roughly made them all the same size so the scale wasn't much of an issue, i guess due to their shape they must not fit perfectly onto A3 paper.
Overall i am really happy with how this turned out and the actual print turned out even better! though because of all the colour i was only able to get one print before it started fading.