ABS Engraver's Plastic Relief Project - Start to Finish

 ABS Engraver's Plastic Relief Project - Start to Finish


Another using a new to me relief material ala linocut/woodcut. See the earlier posts for more in ABS.

I'm still learning all the aspects of working with this material and using engraver's tools, ultrasonic cutter,  and rotary tools with conical file bits for clearing large white areas, very tedious with this 1/20" thin and hard material. 

So, I'm showing the cartoon, the transfer to the plate, the cut plate, the cut plate inked, and the proof. I did not think this one had large enough white areas to need them cut completely away. And the nature of the subject meant some noise in white areas wasn't important and may actually be a good effect. 

Sharp eyes will notice that when I produced the cartoon, I neglected to include the left window box frame and had to put it back in on the fly when cutting. As usual, the cartoon was developed on Dura-Lar which was scanned for the transfer. 



I'm still developing my sense of how to show shadows and tones. The near end of the mattress looked like a good place to make use of the 46 lpi halftone rake. I didn't want to tone the pants too intrusively, so I used the rake there, too. Remember, what ends up being left green prints black, as does the actual black transfer from the cartoon. 



With ABS, first proof is always an adventure. This material accepts very light cuts. Which of course means mistaken light touches show. And there's a certain amount of calculated leaving white areas shallow for effect and not knowing quite how that is going to look. For instance, in the left wall, the white cut areas are deliberately left shallow, unlike the whites of the shirt and arms which are rotary file cut deeper. Because this scene is set in a rundown room, the walls are naturally weathered, and I hoped that leaving those wall areas cut shallow would make it look like wear. 

I thought a lot about the deep shadows, whether to leave them dead black or not, and ended up using fine cuts to preserve the directional aspects. I should have made the fine cuts in the shadow of the bed run in the direction the wood runs. Not fatal, but something to remember next time. 

I believe the ratty nature of the scene will make inking easier than in earlier ABS projects. Some random ink appearing in white areas will just look like degraded places in the fabric, wood or paint or a tone in the sky out the window. 

So, first proof.



Lots to work on. The mattress top need the whites cut deeper to make more clear the buttons and folds. The floorboards need similar work, although I don't want to over do it. 

The rotary tool chattered in cutting the wall on the right. Easily fixed. Needs some edge bevel cleanup around the borders of the arms and the shirt. There's an extra ridge on the cheek that needs to go. Easy enough. I could cut them out entirely with the untrasonic cutter, but as I said, I like some shabby effect. Left side under the window needs cutting down, as does the right side. 

I think I may leave the finelining of the pants alone. The scene out the window is a muddle and needs a lot of work to make sense. I may lose the mountain and make part of it into more tree. Obviously, the house itself needs deeper cutting to print white. 

So, at this stage, I'm reasonably happy. Everything I want to do is doable. Good light and shadow. The face needs only small adjustments. 

So, here is the tentative final state. It may be slightly over-inked. I'll have to play with that. I'm trying to balance between what I'd otherwise clean up on another print and keeping the grubby look of the room. 






I expect I'll keep at it with ABS plastic and try a few more things. 

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