Separating the colors

Here is the final octopus print broken down into the two different color blocks. The white part is what will be carved away, leaving the colored part to take the ink and make the relief print.  Everything will be cut out except that single color and there will be no overprinting,  meaning that the blocks must align perfectly when cut and printed.

Here's block 1—the octopus:

Here's block 2—the text and embellishments:

Printed together, they will look like this:

You can ignore the xy values, those aren't going to be printed

Of course they'll look much cooler than this because it will be real ink, with all the flecks and smudges and imperfections that make prints so unique and awesome.  In the end, I decided it would be easier to cut out the small letters and graphics instead of carving around them, so the text and suction cups will remain white, or paper colored.  Remember that these still must be mirrored before they can be transferred onto the wood, which I'll do just before I print them.  

If you're wondering about the copy line, I came up with this after reading that octopus have 3 hearts and camouflage themselves from predators on a children's website. Because it doesn't seem that too many adults are searching "octopus facts."  The exact wording came together after several failed attempts to come up with a sea shanty-esque rhyme.

Next step: Print out and transfer to the wood