Collaging Process

I had been using a lot of collage in previous projects, however for those I had been sticking all the items down on one piece of paper together. For my Olio project at the beginning of the year I tried collaging the body of my figure together away from the paper, then the limbs separately, and scanning them to put together digitally. This made the composition of the image much easier to do, as if an arm was too high up, or a foot was in the way of something, I could easily adjust this without moving the whole figure as they would be on separate layers. 

This makes the whole process of creating the image much easier, and means that I don't have to compromise on the composition of the page simply because I have stuck my figure's arm on at slightly the wrong angle.

To start with I draw in pencil how I want my character to look on the page. At this stage all I need is a simple line image.

I then split the image into each different section I will be collaging using tracing paper. I need to draw a shape for each piece that I will be cutting out, and quite often the pieces need to overlap to help them stick together, so the shapes quite often don't look very similar to the original image. 

The next stage is to start cutting out the paper. I trace the shape onto the back of the paper so no pencil marks show making sure I flip the tracing paper over so it comes out backwards. Then I cut out each piece with a scalpel knife, and stick together using a glue pen. If it's a particularly flimsy cut out then I also put some tape on the back to secure it, but I have to make sure this is hidden. Generally unless it's a very simple pose, I keep the arms and legs separate from the body when I stick them so I can scan them in separately.

Next, I scan in the pieces. 

Once I have them scanned in I can add the details - such as facial features, pockets, fingers... - digitally, and simply place the character into the page on photoshop. It is much longer to do this process than to simply collage it all together in one go, but it does give me much more control when I reach the digital stage of the process, and if there is a problem having the figure in pieces makes it much much easier to change or fix.