I’m going to try and give you a quick summary of the stuff we learned at Rabbits Road:
Risograph’s are quite persnickety and have their idiosyncrasies.
It’s a super quick method of creating thousands of copies of something.
I view it like a weird hybrid between a photocopier and screen printing.
You have to view the print process a bit like screen printing in that depending on the number of colours you are printing with you will have to separate them out into different layers and copy each layer separately- like building up CYMK.
You create a “master” by copying your first layer (start with lightest colour first).
The master stays on the drum, if you cock up the master you’ll have to make another.
But once you’ve made that master, you can make loads of copies.
You’ll scan your next master if you’re doing another colour. This is where it’s like a photocopier, you place it on the scanning bed, close the lid and then choose “master make”, whether you’re doing a two colour or a single colour, then you’ll have options like line or photo, changing the contrast etc. You’ll press start and then it will make your master.
When you’ve done that for the next master you now have the fun of registering by eye. The misregistration is actually one of the features that people quite enjoy as it can add a different feel to your image/poster/publication.
