Testify and a Noob process

[eyepeace]

So I did another poster... (I've got some questions for you fine folks at the end)

The original concept pencils and digital files:




This is how it ended up:

and the variant:


some more shots...


Yep that's duct tape. I ran out of clear packing tape.
I actually like the duct tape better even though there is a risk with the gumminess.
It seems to be alot easier to take off - as long as you don't let it sit too long.


So overall this one kind of turned into a nightmare.
I wasn't able to start printing until Thursday and they needed to be to the promoter by Monday. Not much wiggle room seeing as how I had to ship them out as well.

Somehow I managed to throw down all kinds of stupid stunts to make it even more difficult. I wish now I had more pictures to show for the stupidity but I was in such a rush I didn't think of it.

Here are a few of the stupids...

Stupid#1:
I was planning on doing a split fountain/ flood - whatever you call it - in my original concepts and doing it 2-up. I was going to pull the ink sideways on the screen. But duh - never thought to measure my longest squeegee... it isn't big enough to do that in one pull, and it's too late to order one.

Stupid#2:
I hadn't printed this size before and I was thinking they fit fine in my 24x31 screens because I live in LaLaLand most of the time. They only leave about an inch and a half of run-off space at the ends of the print.

As you can see that creates a mighty fine mess and left me with alot of messy prints at the bottom.

Stupid #3 (my favorite):
I placed my film on the screen flipped the wrong way. I burned it, washed it out, dried it, and even placed it in the clamps all ready to go without noticing it was backwards. DOH! At least I didn't print it. This sucked big time. I lost major time because of this one.

Oh and come to find out, duct tape is not so good of a UV blocker.

Here are a couple of questions I have though:

#1. I print my films on accumark 13x19 film with accu ink with my epson 1400.
With my ManMan poster I printed my seps from illustrator. Worked great.
This time I printed out my channels from photoshop and they kept printing too big.
It was wierd - they kept seeming to blow up slightly even though I kept it at 100%. Nothing seemed to help. I wasted alot of film on this and that's not cheap.
Anyone have any idea what might have gone wrong?
Next time I'll probably just save out tiffs and line it all up in illustrator. I always feel like I have more control in Illustrator anyway.

#2. Though this was not going well I still wanted to experiment. I wanted to add a metallic ink to the blue. I'm not really sure how this is done.
I ordered some Jacquard Pearl-Ex Pigments and threw the contents of one of those little jars of pearl white into the blue with a couple of tablespoons of extender base.
Here's the photo so you can see how much ink I had mixed up...

I figured it would look cool. It didn't seem to do a damn thing. I did the same thing to the black but with some gold... nothing. Is this just the wrong way to do it or do I have to use way more than this?

[squeegeethree]

Sounds like you had scale to fit media or some such thing clicked.

[Andymac]

and you need piles of pearl to do anything/show.

get some powder.

Looks like you learned a lot. Keep going. Poster # 15 is going to be fucking awsome!

[eyepeace]

Thanks!

Any idea where to buy that powder in bigger quantities than those tiny jars I bought?

And I don't think it was the fit to paper option. It was actually printing it beyond the paper so stuff was getting cut off. It probably is some stupid option buried in all those dialogs. I'll just stick to Illustrator for this stuff from now on. I've never know Photoshop to be the best for sep printing anyway.

[Andymac]

from a screenprinting supply place.

or the local auto paint supply

[squeegeethree]

I don't have that problem with photoshop and 80% of my seps are done with it.

[.devolve.]

I used to get that problem in Illustrator w/ an Epson 1400, where my first film would be slightly off scale from the rest. Now I go to print and set up all my print preferences how I want em but hit the Done button instead of the Print button. Then Cmd-P again and don't adjust anything and they all come out the same.

I don't know why it works, or why the print dialog even HAS a button called Done, but it's working for me...

[eyepeace]

Originally Posted by squeegeethree

I don't have that problem with photoshop and 80% of my seps are done with it.

Hmmm. I've been actually suspicious it's an issue with the printer settings for the epson. Maybe I'll figure it out one day when I have more patience.