The Dragon has emerged as a defining image of GraphicElephants.com. (All images courtesy the author)

Over the last several years we have dabbled in producing some videos at GraphicElephants.com. Some we sell for educational solutions and some for promotional purposes and several we post on YouTube. Somewhere along the line, it became apparent through these videos that there are a couple of images featured that have begun to define our company. For some reason it appears we have a thing for dragons. Maybe it’s the tattoo nature of the original art or just the aggressive behavior of such a mythical creature that has drawn us to them. 

 

As you know I often present seminars and workshops for industry trade shows such as The NBM Show, among others. (Check out my schedule for The NBM Show in Charlotte at right.) It is also common for our company to be hired by industry manufacturers to demonstrate products and supplies in the best light possible. Machine, ink, frame and stencil manufacturers will have us design, sample and print live on the expo show floor to show quality and speed of a particular product or combination. A couple of these demonstrations involved the dragon images that have begun to really define our own company.

 

Genesis of the dragon

Like all good original art, we begin with great subject matter. Because one goal is to show off the equipment, products and our skills, countless hours were spent on research at this stage. Besides the Internet, the public library provided a great deal of reference. None of the examples were exactly right though, so it was back to the drawing board… literally. Putting good old pencil to paper, a sketch was bringing the idea to life, and a favorite illustrator friend helped the art come together. 

 

Creating several basic thumbnails, there was one that particularly stood out. That sketch got inked and scanned into Photoshop where the dragon would get his color. I just love colorin‘!  Using the airbrush tool and the magnifying glass, each of its shapes were defined and the volume was added to get the image to pop off of the black shirt it would be printed on. Using digital masks rather than traditional frisket made the project nearly like real manual airbrush. 

 

Each of the dragon’s scales would be colored one at a time with particular attention to building high contrast—think in terms of that charcoal still-life project in high school art class using Styrofoam cones, disks and spheres with light source placed on one side to really emphasize the deep shadows and highlights.

 

The eyes on the original dragon were a struggle. They say you can tell a lot about a person by his or her eyes. I guess that goes for dragons too. So, flames were brought into consideration but the crystal blue eyes that ended up on the design really gave the dragon a deviant yet not-so-evil personality. 

 

Using and manipulating the individual curves in Photoshop would shape the imagery, once again with emphasis on the heavy shadow and bright highlight areas for good contrast. Smoothing out some of the transitions and cleaning up the edges would make the necessary image changes to optimize the file. After getting to a pleasing color composition, the dragon was ready for separation. Using the index separation method would allow the design to use every head of the 14-color press to really show off the automatic and our printing prowess.

 

The author used a hybrid method that converted the white plate into a halftone gradient instead of the index method, which would help emphasize the contrast of the print.

Index seps give great results and typically, more heads is a good thing. The image was to be printed on black shirts, which requires a white printer. Sure, the index method will provide an adequate white printer, but a hybrid method that converted the white plate into a halftone gradient would be better. This helps provide a smoother transition from light to dark and emphasize that contrast that’s so important on black shirts. Once the seps were complete, it was printed from Illustrator at a substantial size of 18" X 22". 

 

Record run

To get the considerable detail and because of the consistent size of the pixels on the indexed colors, the halftones of the screens were all N-272 tpi to N-300 mesh and all were at high tension 45 N/cm on retensionable frames. The stencil thickness is the standard 10 to 12 percent emulsion over mesh (EOM) using a good dual cure emulsion coated two by two. This provided ideal ink deposit for opacity, yet kept the prints soft and smooth. 

 

To show off a bit, some specialty applications got thrown in the mix—discharge clear, a sprinkled black/gold glitter look, some HD clear for the look and feel of real scales and a fashion soft background treatment.

 

When all was said and done, the design was run as an 11 color with three flashes and no cool downs. Everything was test printed back at the shop, making the setup relatively easy onsite. The pre-registration system dropped right in with only a few small micro movements to get it right on. The off-contact was the minimal 30/1,000 we use on all high-tension printing and the press was in complete plane from platen to platen, to head to head. Once the setup was complete, it was all downhill cruising. This enormous 11-color print on black shirts with multiple specialty applications was printed at a record pace of 1,512 per hour. Ultimately, it was all about the entire process. And with the best materials, products and equipment, there are few limitations.