October’s Print / Dragon Warrior / shipping next week

Really excited to share October’s print, ‘Dragon Warrior,’ inspired by Chappell Roan’s VMA dress and Joan of Arc~ creating a Roan D’Arc combo inspiration hah. I loved her dress, her vibe, I love this composition, I’m really happy with the colors and I can’t wait to send this out to everyone who paid on October 1st!

This one was printed in yellow, fluorescent pink, and blue- in that order, to reduce roller marks, but they’ll definitely be visible with this print. Unfortunately just part of how dark pink her dress is and how much ink runs down the center of the piece.

This took an extraordinarily long time to get the colors and values right. I think it’s because the dress got so complicated (which was exciting to draw and completely hell to color) and I kept changing my mind on the style I wanted for her. Originally I wanted it to just be a pink dress to pop against the green dragon, but then I realized I would solve many of my color problems if I stuck to the black dress inspiration from Chappell Roan I originally started with. Then the whole thing came together slowly as I played off the deep purple of the dress with other values around the composition.

I like to start with a single color, then add a color next to it that A. works with the story I’m trying to tell, and B. works with the values around it. So I wanted the dress to be pink…but I also wanted her hair to be pink…and if they were both pink then I’d have a legibility issue. Anyway that’s a bit of behind the scenes of how I’m thinking about color for these prints! I want to move the viewers eye around the piece to make my story stronger and the line work look the way I intended!

This whole piece was a journey, but ultimately I’m really thrilled by the grays and browns mixed with vibrant pinks and oranges, along with the complimentary color gradients. I think I learned a lot about grouping values together so complicated shapes can be read as the same figure or creature. The more complicated the line art gets, the more grouping values and color becomes my best friend! I’m always on the hunt to make my line art look really cool!

Anyway, hope you enjoy the print! I’ll be sharing a bunch of riso breakdowns soon, including this one! xx natalie