Responsive Print Development

For the Cath Kidston brief, I wanted to create a range of patterns using everyday objects which had not yet been produced. I thought bugs would be an interesting and fun theme as they are part of nature, everyone is familiar with them and they link to the commonly used floral themes used for Cath Kidston prints.

I began with an illustration of a ladybird. The main body of the bug was then traced and used as a template to experiment with different ladybird variations (shown below). 

Once I was pleased with my initial drawings, I scanned them into Photoshop in order to alter the contrast and brightness of the lines.

I then selected my favourite ladybird as an initial experiment to continue with. 

The ladybird was cut out using the 'lasso' selection tool. This was then copied and pasted into a new Photoshop document. I then proceeded to copy and pass the ladybird illustration into a repeated series of ladybirds. In order to do this, each ladybird was placed onto its own individual layer (shown below). This meant I needed to be cautious when placing each ladybird as it was going to be difficult to shift them around as the layers built up.

In order to better organise the document, once I had completed one line of ladybirds, I hid the background image (a blank white page). I then selected the layer option and then 'merge visible layers'. This was an effective way of essentially grouping the bugs together into one new layer. The benefit of this was that I was now able to copy a line at a time as opposed to one bug individually. This is how I intended to create the majority of my patterns in Photoshop.

I then began applying colour and more detail to the image. The obvious first colour which came to mind was the bright, bold red found on a ladybird's back, as well as a selection of large black dots. This was also applied using Photoshop. In a separate document, I manually selected the area of the ladybird's back which I wanted to apply colour to. The layer was then placed beneath the original one drawing and black dots so it wasn't obstructing or covering any essential detail.