M.C. Escher, You're My Hero
This exercise teaches you how to build a tessellation, or a collection of interlocking figures that leave no empty space between them. While this can be tedious and time consuming, if you're into patterns or intricate detail, this is the activity for you. Plus, aside form the basic steps toward constructing a tessellation, everything else is open ended, and you can use any technique you want to fill out your design.
To start, you'll need to choose a base shape. You can use any shape really, triangles, octagons, whatever. I went with a simple square for the example though, for the sake of simplicity (which I quickly made complicated anyway.) I also went with the simple stencil method, which requires much less thought. If you really want, you can use a compass and a protractor and a set of french curves, or any other type of guides or stencils. I try not to work that hard as a general rule.
To start, you'll need to choose a base shape. You can use any shape really, triangles, octagons, whatever. I went with a simple square for the example though, for the sake of simplicity (which I quickly made complicated anyway.) I also went with the simple stencil method, which requires much less thought. If you really want, you can use a compass and a protractor and a set of french curves, or any other type of guides or stencils. I try not to work that hard as a general rule.
Start by tracing a line on one side of your base shape. The trick is to add anything you take away from one side to the opposing side. I used a piece of scrap paper for my design square, and traced the changes from the cut pieces onto what will become my finished stencil, a manila folder I had lying around (the sturdier card stock of the folder makes a better, more durable stencil.)
I continue to subtract from one side and add to the other, in this case, using the same pattern I had for the first change. Look, a flower!! Or a manta ray. Whatever, it's not complicated enough for me yet.
Again, more of the same. Take a section away from on side and add it to the other, and so on, ad absurdum.
At this point, my paper square was getting difficult to use, so I traced the current pattern onto another piece of scrap paper and continued on from there.
Ah, here. This is just an example of how to make sure your pattern placement remains as close to uniform as is possible. It's important that the design is consistent within itself, or else you'll have a bitch of a time getting it to tile properly later.
Once you have a pattern you're happy with, go ahead and cut it out for use as a stencil. Also, don't run with scissors.
Start tiling your design using the stencil on the page you're using for your finished design.
Fill the page, or as much of it as you want to.
Finally, fill in the detail to each of your multiple tiles, however you want. I struggle with the concept of conformity, and really uniformity of any kind, so even when using a uniform stencil and tiling pattern, I still went with slightly different contained designs within the tiles. I also went ahead and cleaned it up with ink, mostly because I prefer pen and ink. The sharper edges and defined black and white appeals to me.
As always, I used Paint.Net to further modify the original design. If you look close enough, you'll see how the subtle variations in the template made it harder to fit the edges of the designs to each other. Still, it worked out well enough that I now have a demented army of weasel wizard apprentices.