Author: Star Mishra

I also carved some smaller lino blocks as many of the other ones were quite large in scale, and I needed some to fill in the smaller spaces in between on prints. I used the keyring motif for my character Azazel, as well as smaller blocks of both her and Thanatos. I also made a small block of Varuna, another character I was working with. This was definitely extremely

Challenging, as she has a lot of tiny scale detail on her arm, which did not transfer to lino easily. However, I am happy with how it all turned out in the end, as I did manage to capture some of the finer details on her block, since by this point I had quite a bit of practice working in this way.

Following the feedback I received at my tutorial, I carved out a few more lino blocks. I was only able to carve out 5-6 more however, as Lino is quite expensive but also time consuming. Had I made the switch to working with it earlier on in the process, I could have carved more, but all things considered, I am happy with the amount of blocks I was able to carve in the end. 

This time, instead of only making blocks of my characters, I also wanted to have elements of the motifs that represented them, the most challenging one to execute being my character Thanatos’s jellyfish motif. 

I found carving this block to be a challenge. I had only done one other block as detailed as this beforehand, so i did end up losing some of the finer details while carving. However, I am still happy with the results, as I feel that the imperfections add a really interesting texture to the final result. 

I received some feedback from a peer about my narrative experiment, and was surprised but happy to see the way in which they interpreted it. I was especially intrigued by the mention of X-rays, as I had not considered this initially. 

This feedback was especially helpful to me as it not only allowed me to understand the beauty of how many different interpretations can be born of a visual narrative, it also helped me understand that if I had a very specific story I wanted to tell with my work, I had to be more deliberate about it. 

i also got some on my jellyfish lino that ill show in a later post but here is that feedback as wellll

Next, I attempted to layer my prints over a watercolor portrait I painted. I wanted to try and see if I could add both texture and depth visually as well as conceptually. 

I wanted to play with the idea of ‘daydream first’, having the subject matter be in the lowest layer, with my character lino blocks printed on above, appearing to be almost a fleeting dream of the girl amongst the flowers. I found this experiment really enjoyable, and applied a similar layering technique in my final prints as a result.

After receiving helpful feedback on my work, I began to experiment with more ways to bring my narrative across in my work. I played with interactive elements to portray fragmented identity, the main theme of my work. In this case, I used a star canvas that can be removed from on top of the paper to cover a contrasting figure within the shape of the canvas. While this is definitely a very basic idea, it helped me develop more nuanced ideas towards how I wanted to portray this theme in my work in the end.

Initially going into the more analogue, I had decided that I wanted my final outcome to be an installation with 2 mirrors next to each other on a wall, with prints from the lino blocks I would carve on the reflective part. I then moved on to wanting to do something with mirror shards hanging from an elevated platform with these prints instead, making it more fragmented. 

As such, I got a lot of good feedback from my tutorials- I brought in my initial lino experiments and ideas about the installation. I was encouraged to keep going, carve as many blocks of lino as I could, and play with composing each character’s print on a multitude of objects to create a layered visual narrative. I was encouraged especially to work with 3d objects.  Thanks to this feedback, I was able to sit on the feedback and better refine my idea- instead of working with only mirrors, I began to experiment with different surfaces and ways to bring my desired outcome to life. 

Once my initial lino blocks were carved, I began to play around with surfaces to print them on. I wanted to print onto household objects to add a personal touch to the piece, resulting in an installation with a few mirrors, vases and a table, all with these characters printed onto them. I found that the mirror took the ink transfer well from smaller prints, but not from my larger print of the cg. I struggled a little with printing on fabric, as the ink did not transfer very easily, but I was satisfied with the end result. I also tried to print onto a crochet block that I created for this experiment. I found this to be the most visually appealing piece, as I found the texture it created to be extremely interesting.

The most challenging and detailed print by far was of one of the cgs I drew for my game last year. I wanted to call back to this art as I still wanted my visual novel to be incorporated in some way, even if it was reimagined in a more analog concept. I redrew the design straight onto the lino block, using a colored pencil so I could see it better than with a normal grey pencil, and carved it on hard lino. I did forget to flip the design when doing so, but I found that the print, while inverted, still maintained the quality of the initial design well, and so did not redo it.

I carved out some lino blocks to start with of my original character designs, two from before, and one newer one which I developed in the character design workshop I mentioned earlier. Inspired by the bold and detailed lines I saw used in the murals in Mumbai, I carved around my lines on the lino block , creating a lineart effect. 

I experimented with both soft and hard lino, and found that I preferred the overall experience of working with hard lino to soft lino, as it held its form better and didn’t stick to things much. However, I did find that soft lino transferred ink onto paper without needing as much pressure as its harder counterpart. 

The part I found most challenging about this process was filtering out detail from my designs, as I needed to simplify them so that they would transfer to lino seamlessly. I did struggle with scaling the drawings onto the block as well, so certain prints have flat heads or are cut off because of this. 

After coming up with the concept for Bubble Girl, I started coloring her. I used blue, white and pink as her color scheme as that is generally the colors I associate with bubbles. 

While I did not end up using this character in any of my work, I was able to implement some of the techniques I strengthened while creating her into the work that went into my final outcome. 

Overall, I found the character design exercises to be extremely effective and helpful, as they led to me feeling comfortable enough to make character based visual narrative a central part of my final outcome.