[image description: 6 photos of a combination letterpress and hand-drawn print of Megaera from the g

[image description: 6 photos of a combination letterpress and hand-drawn print of Megaera from the game Hades, and the formes of lead type used to print it. it’s a 5.375x10 inch piece, black pen drawing illustrating Megaera wielding her whip inside a loose & lightweight frame of sharp black rods, climbing roses, and a podium-like base featuring small elements from her chamber in Tartarus. The letterpress elements are her name, bordered with a Greek key pattern, and the blue color of her chiton, pants, and wrapped forearms, rendered in a relief-printed repeating geometric pattern. individual photo IDs under the cut.]part of a set of Hades prints i donated to Desert Bus 2021, which are scheduled for giveaway in the noon-6 pm slot Thursday the 18th!I can’t quite put my finger yet on when i feel it’s beneficial for the printed pattern to be very regular and flat, vs. this kind, which is a bit more randomized and almost pretends to be morphed by 3D folds. The printing on it was pretty straightforward, but i did do this one in multiple passes as well, tilting different parts of her outfit at different angles so her pants and tunic patterns didn’t align across the barrier of her skirt trim. I also needed to be pretty careful to get printed color coverage in a whole bunch of corners, otherwise the tunic especially is missing some important information to parse it. picking elements from her boss fight chamber to put in the frame was super fun :) there’s so much Good Geometry in Hades’ environment design!! sadly i don’t have nearly enough of the Greek keys to cover the clothing area, so i put it in her titling block and made her a whole podium about it. Name set in Invitation.more wip : Thanatos : Zagreus1: a photo of the complete print, where Megaera stands with her whip looping around her, wing out and preparing to grasp the hilt tighter. the bottom of the frame implies a pedestal, decorated with hooded heads and and geometric shapes like the statues and floor tiles of Megaera’s boss fight chamber. The iron rods implying the sides of the border end in twisting helixes, also like the tiles on her floor, and are covered in thorny rose vines. Hanging from the roses are her Skull Earring keepsake and Companion Battie.2: a closeup of the finished print, showing details like the line texture of her hair and whip, and large areas where the pattern was relief-printed in blue.3: a photo of the handset forme used to print the blue pattern on her clothes. It’s a slightly random arrangement of geometric pieces intended to be a decorative border, looping over and under itself sort of like a blocky Celtic knot pattern. The pieces are in this case set to turn corners and double back on themselves to cover more of the area.4: a photo of a proof of the printed pattern, and the mylar mask positioned on top of it that will allow the pattern to print only in the desired, irregular area of the shape of Meg’s chiton. the decorative pieces cover a larger, rectangular area, and the print is protected from printing in the negative space by a hand-cut mask made from mylar. The print will be put underneath the mylar mask, and printed only through the hole in the mylar.5: a closeup of the finished print, focusing on the lower half, her wide stance, the pedestal, and the impression where Megaera’s name is printed with the Greek key border.6: a photo of the handset formes used to print Meg’s name. these formes need to be lifted up, carried, and held vertically in the bed of the clamshell press, so all negative space around the individual letters and decorative pieces are filled with shorter pieces, too low to ink or print. then pressure is applied by wedges to two sides of the forme, inside a rectangular cast iron frame, so that the whole frame and all the assembled pieces inside it can be lifted up. -- source link

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