Photocopier Experiments

Whilst I was trying to figure out how do go about designing some of my creatures, I decided to experiment with the photocopier I have at home.

I wanted it to be sea themed so that I would be able to use it as a reference or base for something but I started off by playing around with my beetle necklace.

I tried a couple of different materials. I used tracing paper which worked extremely well although my printer hated printing onto it and I of course used normal paper and I also tried acetate but that didn’t work at all because the ink just wouldn’t dry on the surface.

The way I did it was by putting my necklace onto the photocopying bed and then dragging the charm along the scanner part (I don’t know the name for that part). In doing so the print came out looking all distorted and weird.

My first attempt at messing around with the photocopier. 

On this print I was able to make my beetle necklace look like a centipede or something weird by dragging it along the photocopier bed. 

Second attempt with crumpled tracing paper. The necklace looks kind of creepy in this one. 

Once I had finished figuring out what I could do with the photocopier by playing around with the necklace. I decided I would have a go with some spiced octopus I bought from a deli counter. They were pretty slimy so I put a layer of acetate down in order to protect the copier. I then repeated the steps I used with the beetle.

I was able to create more interesting things with the octopus because I had more of them.

This was my favourite print. It got a little jammed in the printer but it was worth it because the way the octopus goes from clearly an octopus to something barely recognisable was really fun to play around it with. 

This one was done with a layer of tracing paper. The slime from the octopus made the tracing paper go transparent in places creating this feeling of steamed up glass and a the distorted nature of it looks like something H. P. Lovecraft might have cooked up. 

This was again with crumpled tracing paper. 

This was one I printed on tracing paper, you can probably see how my printer hated me for that. 

I didn’t try to do anything special with this one, I just wanted to test how the octopus would photocopy and how best to do it. What I found was it looked better when I left the lid up although it did mean I needed to wear sunglasses to protect my eyes. 

This was my first attempt. On this one I put the lid down and it made the background too light for my liking so I learned that I needed to leave it in order to create that slightly strange, unnerving feel. 

Overall I was really happy with these and I actually found it a lot of fun to do. I would like to see what other kinds of prints and weird things I can do with the photocopier.