I have spent the last day or two working on my patterns and placements for the hedgehog collection which I think has been coming together nicely with some nice ideas.
I started off with the hero design, using the hedgehog in a couple of cute poses and creating a full block repeat to start with, to get the feeling of the motifs and what else I wanted to add into it.
I think the green background worked the best here, maybe because the green motifs are dark and the pink and even some of the blue ones are a little lighter so it would fade into the background a little. I do like this though and think putting it into a half drop repeat will help it flow better as I have done with some of the others.
The difference between the half drop and the full drop interests me because it does give the pattern a totally different flow to it. I really like the way it half drops and maybe I could have spread out the hedgehogs and motifs a little more but I did not want to have a very small scale repeat. I like here that I can see all the hedgehogs and the motifs in a small surface area, which definitely would suit the small items I want to put this pattern on, like a makeup bag, pencil case, or at largest, a cushion.
I applied the kind of formula that I have adopted to a few different placements ideas I have had, I think ideally I would like to see a different placement with each little collection, and like colourways, I can show that these options are available with the other species and can work for each one. I particularly like the bold centre placement, I also like the corner placements a lot and I think these will work really well on notebooks, paper, I could even try it on some squarer fabric objects such as corners of pouches and bags, I think getting to the point where I can start playing around with mockups would be really useful for this kind of idea to see what the various things suit well.
The opaque kind of images I thought could be little corner placements on notebook paper or something like that, which again I think I can test it out well with mockups to see how well this works. My plan for the line drawings is to try and print them on see-through paper, but I do need to see how it works because I only have access to one printer right now so if it is the wrong type this will not work. I suppose I could try tracing it with a sharpie directly onto the see-through paper, I’ll call that Plan B.
I wanted to try and do a new type of placement image, so I thought about this long header idea, which could work on a number of things, such as pages and notebooks, and along a long pouch or pencil case, or even a long cushion. I tried it kind of organically first in the rough shape I wanted, but then actually tried a symmetrical design which I think looks better and shows the two hedgehogs coming together to meet which I think is cute. I would then like to try this with the other three animals, I have some poses in mind that would work for the others I think.
These designs show some secondaries and blenders I created from the original design, I like a number of these and I think they work well with some colourways, and others (like the oak) I thought would be better due to the similar shapes working in other collections but I just dont like the rigid way that it sits.
I think my favourites have to be the hedgehog design in this lot, and the sycamore leaves on the white background, both the secondary and the blender designs.
I tried a berry design with all three colours used quite evenly, I think these look quite dynamic in shape but I do not think the overall look is quite what I wanted it to be, so I decided to try dropping a colour and each time just focus on two colours to see the effects of this a little better.
I reduced the colour first but just having a little blue in the tile with the berries that had majorly green or pink leaves on it, I think this still looked a little busy whether it was all tossed closely or more sparse. I then cut out the colours completely and just use the same few motifs to create a tossed repeat with the green and pink leaves and a more linear repeat with the blue leaves, which I think need a rotation or a half drop or something to make it look more exciting because it is an uneven shape and just seems heavy to the one side.
I like the dark green leaves particularly and I think it works well on the pink background, I would say it is probably my favourite out of the lot but I think if I can make something better for a secondary I would have this one as a backup rather than one I am certain I will use.
The blue foliage ones here look good, I think the repeat is nice this could work on a small or large scale. I tried it on a few different shades and I particularly like the light pink and the dark blue, I like dark colours and I would like to experiment with this further. I think a lot of my designs I have tried it on briefly but something just did not look right, but if I lightened up my actual motifs to give that contrast that could be quite an interesting little collection from my main collection in itself.
I think my favourite green is the pink background but I think it does work on the blue as well, the pink is interesting because I think the light green, blue and the dark blue works really well. I would say that my dark blue one here is more interesting to me because it jumps out as different which I do like.
I tried a new style of pattern by making these circular kind of designs first using the leaf motifs and creating a repeat out of this, I like this but I might look at doing it in some other colourways too. I produced the usual dots designs that I have done throughout, so there is a huge number of colours for this design with a lot of different colour combinations which I really like for options. I also tried some designs that show some small flowers first evenly and then more randomly, I think these both look okay but not my favourite blenders. I then went more into using foliage and trying to create more of a stripe to it which I like, the shapes formed with it naturally look good, with the green one I think the less striped one looks better to give it some negative space. I prefer the blue foliage stripes with the dots as I think they work on both the pink and the white backgrounds. Finally the linear leaves were done in a kind of brick pattern in the way I positioned them, and again I like the white and the pink going with the blue well, so I think I have some decisions to make but I have an idea of what I want to show in my collection.
I think the hedgehog board altogether comes out with a strong colour balance between backgrounds and complimenting colours, I carried the white, green and pink backgrounds throughout it, although I might look at a green background in the blenders as there are three pink. I think the top leaf design might look better with pink leaves on the green background so I will definitely give this a go instead. I like the hero design and I showed the more even repeat with that too, and the little header placement that I think I could show examples of with all the other species too.
I think now the next thing is to fill in some gaps in the collection, like doing the corner designs for the dormouse and squirrel, and maybe trying the header design for the other three too, then I can have a proper look at it and see what I want to improve with it. I think the good thing about printing out all my patterns and covering a plasterboard is that I spend a lot of time glancing at them and have noticed little things I do not like already.
Tahlia Paige 