A Research on the Mechanisms and Practices of Digital Translation of New Year Illustrations

Abstract

Writing on current challenges in digital New Year Illustrations for example stiff and rigid lines, color schemes that do not correspond with traditional folk symbols and image texture in the face of glowing screens, this article aims to explore the different approaches and practical ways to convert traditional folk woodblock New Year Illustrations into digital illustrations. To create digital illustrations, in this paper, digital artists need to keep the digital brushes tuned and the software set to auto-smoothing and in such a way that the rhythmic variations of white-line drawing and woodblock engraving are accurate; in terms of color schemes, artists must follow folk opera in that they should keep the traditional colors of the main figures such as door gods and child attendants and add modern hues for backgrounds and secondary decorative elements only; and also, using multi-layer composition and mixing the fiber texture of Xuan Paper to layer and keeping subtle misregistration, the textural quality of the on-screen image can be enhanced. This paper gives illustrators good guidelines to make work that can match the spirit of traditional New Year Illustrations with modern design and is a good reference to encourage the application and interpretation of traditional folk art in contemporary visual design.