Quick Facts:
Size: 11″ x 8″ (27.5 x 20.0cm) approx
Paper: Awagami Factory Shiramine
Impressions: 24
Blocks: 7, carved front & back
Wood: American Cherry, Shina plywood
This woodblock print depicts the Cyborg Ninja character from the 1998 video game “Metal Gear Solid.” The original artwork was illustrated by Yoji Shinkawa, which I painstakingly converted into a Japanese woodblock print in this fan art project.
Once again, this was perhaps my most ambitious print thus far. Unlike many of my previous prints (which are basically screenshots from an anime), the original image in this case was an illustration by Yoji Shinkawa, and I really wanted to capture the loose, hand-drawn brush feeling in the image. The key block has many fine lines, which were challenging both to carve and to print. Additionally, the original image (seen below) has many overlapping colors, so it was quite a headache trying to work backwards from the original, and figure out which color goes where.
I took the above image, and painstakingly separated it into its (approximate) component colors, as shown in the animation below. It’s probably not a perfect or exact translation of the colors, but it seems to be pretty close. I ended up with 23 separate color layers (and one layer for the black/key lines).
Each of those 23 color layers was then carved on to a woodblock. Photos of the blocks can be seen below. In total, there are 7 physical blocks of wood, carved front and back.
As for wood, I used American Cherry for the key block, since it has the most delicate lines; but for the color blocks I used Shina plywood, since those blocks don’t have as much detail and since it is easier/faster to carve.
More specifically, the Shina plywood for this project is the 5.5mm “Economy Shina” from Jackson’s. This was my first time using this specific Shina plywood. It’s a bit less expensive than the Shina from McClain’s, so I wanted to give it a try. It worked okay for the most part, however there are a couple issues with it:
- It is a bit thin, and has only 3 plies; so I glued two boards back-to-back, resulting in an 11mm thick board that could be carved on both sides.
- The surface of the boards also has seams where two pieces of veneer meet. If you were using these boards for cabinetry or something, it probably wouldn’t be an issue, but for printmaking, I was a bit concerned that it might produce a line in the print. And sometimes, the seam was in an awkward position that was difficult to work around. I tried to use those awkward boards as the “glue” side when making the two-layer blocks described in the previous point.
- The inner/middle ply of the board sometimes has some pretty big gaps/seams where two pieces of the inner ply meet. You can easily notice these as vertical stripes in the block photos above. In some places, the gap was 1+ millimeters wide. If I was only using a single 5.5mm board (and not the 11mm sandwich described in the first point), I might be a little concerned about the structural integrity of the board.
More details coming soon™
Bonus block photos:
