Prototype #1

2. Raw 3D-Printed Plates

4. Letterpress Ink of Tested 3D Plates

6. Relief Ink of Tested 3D Prints

On Friday, January 16, 2026, I played around with TinkerCad and familiarized myself with the software. During the experimentation, I designed a quick mockup of an apple with various “cross-hatching” lines and holes of various sizes to see how little is little when 3D-printing the test plates and how they look when printed. During my test 3D prints, I printed 3 PLAs and one experimental TPU plate.

Moving to Week 3 of the quarter, I printed all plates in different inks and two techniques. All plates were printed with relief printmaking ink, letterpress ink, and water-soluble ink. One process was printing the plates using the letterpress provided by the program, while the second process was handprinting (with a wooden spoon). Below are the results of the tests I ran.

3. Inked 3D-Prints

5. Water-Soluble Ink of Tested 3D Plates