Recent Listenings:
by Zach Foster
This will essentially be a blog posting of the thought and technical process behind this work.
I love the Raygun. Recently, my roommate and I have been playing a lot of Black Ops 2 Zombies. Getting back into the groove of training and figuring out how to push our round limits higher than we may have achieved when we were younger (which honestly isn’t working out very well). Through this process, we have experienced tons of nostalgia as both of us used to play this game, specifically zombies and even more specifically a map called “Town” pretty religiously. What strikes me as interesting is the excitement we get when the random modifiers for the mystery box give us the Raygun. We get so incredibly excited and yelp out like two little dogs every time we see that silhouette. I think a lot of that has to do with how we perceived the Raygun when we were younger, when it was one of the few wonder weapons that actually existed in Call of Duty. Now, comparatively, it's not even all that great, but it will always remain special in our minds, as it will for many, I’m sure.
Aside from Zombies specifically, I have been thinking a lot about bringing game-like graphics into my print practice. Initially, it was just out of curiosity to see how these forms would take shape in a layered halftone format, but it’s becoming a lot more than that. I take great inspiration from the nostalgia I experience from playing over these old games again, and it’s just as exciting as I remember it, which is relatively surprising. I’ve been obsessed over character and weapon design from older games (2000-2016 range) for a while now, and I’m super happy I finally took a stab at recreating something like that in print, and what a great place to start. My next one will most likely involve the Halo series, as that was a massive part of my childhood. I used to wake up before elementary school around 4 am just to play Halo: Reach invasion.
The process of creating this piece was not significantly different from my other CMYK works; however, it was fun to work directly with a textured 3D model. I was going to try out different angles and stuff, but I just decided to stick with the perspective you see from the mystery box to really bring out that nostalgia. It was shocking to see that rusty red really came through in CMYK because it typically struggles in that gamut range, but I’m unbelievably happy with the result. It triggers something in my brain, and that’s when I know I hit the target. I used a 305 mesh screen with an 80 dpi halftone, standard CMYK angles, and self-mixed tri-art 7:1 ratio ink for you technical heads. These are printed on GORGEOUS sheets of Legion Rising White Stonehenge 300gsm paper. I needed an extremely smooth paper to allow these dots to be placed correctly. Brought the trusty old pins and tabs system out with the correct off-contact, and Bob's your uncle. Clean, photographic prints, my favourite. I also LOVE the damaged look the process blessed me with, it happens almost every time I do CMYK, maybe it’s just my learned technique, do I claim it for my own or simply give credit to the Screen gods?
Can’t wait to share the next one,
Zach
Muah.