1. Start Ugly. Start Loose.
Chris begins with a super rough sketch. No pressure. No perfection. Just getting the idea down. If you’re serious about improving, this matters. Tightening too early kills energy.
2. Linework Comes First
For Chris, linework is everything. He uses a brush that mimics the felt-tip pens he originally drew with subtle pressure sensitivity, a bit of ink bleed, just enough grit. That slight imperfection is what keeps the work from feeling sterile. Clean isn’t the goal. Character is.
3. Limiting the Color Palette (The Printmaker Mindset)
This is where things get interesting. When Chris knows he’ll be using the Risograph (Riso-style) brushes, he intentionally limits his palette often to just three base colors like blue, pink, and yellow.
Why? Because those three colors can be layered to create green, purple, darker tones, and rich overlapping textures. By setting each color to its own layer and using Multiply blending mode, the colors interact naturally — just like real risograph or screen printing.
The result is less digital, more analog, and more intentional. And if you ever wanted to actually print it, it’s already production-ready.
4. Texture Before Texture
Before applying the final Riso fills, Chris adds grit and shading using texture brushes, subtle glow in highlights, dark edge shading, grit in shadow areas, and slight distress in letters. These details build depth before the unifying pass.
5. The Risograph Layering Technique
Here’s the core move. Separate each flat color onto its own layer. Load that layer as a selection. Apply one of the numbered Risograph brushes (1–3). Use varying fill percentages from 10–100%. Set layers to Multiply.
Each numbered brush has a different texture pattern, which prevents the overlaps from looking artificial. This creates natural ink variation, realistic print overlap, organic color blending, and subtle imperfections. It’s controlled chaos (and it’s satisfying).
6. Colored Linework (The Secret Sauce)
Instead of placing black lines over the top, Chris does something smarter. He loads the linework as a selection and fills it using the same three base colors, allowing them to overlap and create the darkest composite tone. That unified dark becomes the line color.
The result feels vintage and cohesive. Black would feel pasted on. This feels printed.
7. Distress, Shade, and Finish
To push it further, he uses mess-up brushes for print defects, adds shader brushes for dimension, and finishes with paper texture like Paper Boy. That final paper layer pulls everything together and adds warmth. This is where the piece stops looking digital.
