3 color risograph process / bruise
Wanted to have a publicly available writeup on my riso process, so here’s an edited version of something I originally posted on Patreon for one of my monthly prints:
19 / 26-02 / bruise (1/6) / process
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First print for 2026, in light lime, copper, and medium blue - this year I'll be alternating a miniseries of 6 prints with my standard "whatever I feel like making" so this is number one of that series.
I've wanted to do some sort of seasonal / solar terms calendar for a while, so that's where the thought process for this series originally started. I guess this is still vaguely related, which is why I want to space it out over the year so (at least in the northern hemisphere) the prints feel seasonally appropriate, but it's morphed into something else. It's a lot of what I'm always thinking about: time, cycles, metamorphosis or decay, things people made a very long time ago, etc.....
For this series specifically, I wanted to work within the possibilities of a 3 color palette. Because I have more control (and time) printing from a computer vs the detail loss I would get from having to physically print out layers to scan in, I'm doing spot color separations / manually designing the separations as I color.
19 / 26-02 / bruise (1/6) / process
First print for 2026, in light lime, copper, and medium blue - this year I'll be alternating a miniseries of 6 prints with my standard "whatever I feel like making" so this is number one of that series.
I've wanted to do some sort of seasonal / solar terms calendar for a while, so that's where the thought process for this series originally started. I guess this is still vaguely related, which is why I want to space it out over the year so (at least in the northern hemisphere) the prints feel seasonally appropriate, but it's morphed into something else. It's a lot of what I'm always thinking about: time, cycles, metamorphosis or decay, things people made a very long time ago, etc.....
For this series specifically, I wanted to work within the possibilities of a 3 color palette. Because I have more control (and time) printing from a computer vs the detail loss I would get from having to physically print out layers to scan in, I'm doing spot color separations / manually designing the separations as I color.
Like most of my projects this actually starts out as a lot of incoherent notes / thumbnails in my sketchbook, but once I have a general idea my digital process usually goes: rough concept sketch → refined sketch → even more refining / inks. Once I had my lineart, I worked in grayscale to create flats / filled areas (keeping each different area on its own layer). In the case of the bottom panel, I painted in some larger areas of flat color just focusing on value.
Since this was the first print, I spent some time thinking about the ink colors I wanted to use. With a 3 color "CMY" palette I'd generally want a "cyan/blue", a "magenta/red," and a "yellow" to get the widest range of color mixing. I really wanted to use copper in this vs red/pink, so that somewhat informed my other color choices of medium blue + light lime. I was originally thinking of trying to use bright olive green (you can see it in the extremely haphazard top color test), but I think the lighter lime gave me a palette I liked better. I also did a quick color rough for the bottom panel to get a sense of the palette I would get, color picking from slapdash mockup color charts and also eyeballing "well I think I can approximate this color." I kind of love using bright riso inks to make browns / grays / muddy colors so I was hoping this would actually work out in print.
With palette confirmed, I set up my file for color separations. I duplicated all the flats/grayscale layers into 3 folders, one for each ink color. I try to keep my lineart as a single color to make registration a little easier, and in this case they're in the medium blue layer. Folders have a gradient map clipped to them with appropriate ink color (referencing hex codes from stencil.wiki + physical color charts) + are set to multiply to mock up how the final will look.
(You can also mock up riso layering with color fill layers set to screen - there's slight differences in how that converts grayscale but to be honest it's pretty negligible considering the final physical print is not necessarily going to match what's on your screen. I just prefer using gradient maps / like making arbitrary decisions that make life slightly more annoying for myself and then sticking with them out of habit...)
I then went through every layer and lightened or darkened each one as needed to get the color I wanted... probably it would've been better to do a color mockup of the whole print and reference that but the print was relatively simple enough that I could just brute force it with a general idea of whether I wanted something to be, for example, more brown. With the base colors set up, it was also easier to go in and add details in specific ink layers (for example, drawing more areas of lime in the bottom panel to create some greener areas).
(You can also mock up riso layering with color fill layers set to screen - there's slight differences in how that converts grayscale but to be honest it's pretty negligible considering the final physical print is not necessarily going to match what's on your screen. I just prefer using gradient maps / like making arbitrary decisions that make life slightly more annoying for myself and then sticking with them out of habit...)
I then went through every layer and lightened or darkened each one as needed to get the color I wanted... probably it would've been better to do a color mockup of the whole print and reference that but the print was relatively simple enough that I could just brute force it with a general idea of whether I wanted something to be, for example, more brown. With the base colors set up, it was also easier to go in and add details in specific ink layers (for example, drawing more areas of lime in the bottom panel to create some greener areas).
Final layer breakdown: from top to bottom lime, copper, and medium blue. Left column is the grayscale layer, middle is what that would look like in color, and right is the layered color mockup. It is somewhat annoying to have what feels like 1000 layers in each file, but it does make adjustments while printing a lot easier.
Once I had my final separations, I set up additional files at print size with crop + registration marks for printing. Anybody more dedicated to color fidelity than me might also do some test prints / color charts at this point to see how the inks actually layer on paper.
Once I had my final separations, I set up additional files at print size with crop + registration marks for printing. Anybody more dedicated to color fidelity than me might also do some test prints / color charts at this point to see how the inks actually layer on paper.
How the actual ink layers turned out. I printed this on a 2 drum machine, so the first is the light lime + copper layers, and the second is with the medium blue. I also have these set up as 4-up on 11x17" paper because that's what I have.
As a note, for smaller prints with fine lineart/details it's probably smarter to set up your files for example 2-up on a smaller size of paper to help with registration between layers (things like skew between color layers is much more apparent printing across the larger paper), but I’ve been used to much jankier older riso printers and so will keep making questionable decisions. Also, I can avoid track marks / don’t have to try to wait for layers to dry by keeping that central space empty...
(I will say I think I flew a little too close to the sun with trying to layer the very fine dark brown tree branch reflections, though the misalignment does help with the reflection vibe.)
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The final print again, for reference.
As a note, for smaller prints with fine lineart/details it's probably smarter to set up your files for example 2-up on a smaller size of paper to help with registration between layers (things like skew between color layers is much more apparent printing across the larger paper), but I’ve been used to much jankier older riso printers and so will keep making questionable decisions. Also, I can avoid track marks / don’t have to try to wait for layers to dry by keeping that central space empty...
(I will say I think I flew a little too close to the sun with trying to layer the very fine dark brown tree branch reflections, though the misalignment does help with the reflection vibe.)
The final print again, for reference.