# Scratchboard × Woodcut — composed image prompt
# IndexStyle — https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=scratchboard+woodcut
# Scratchboard carries the structure and Woodcut appears as the accent.
# Style descriptors only. This prompt names no artist, studio, brand or work.

Produce four original images that take their structure from Scratchboard (technique, 19th century–) and their accent from Woodcut (technique, 8th century–).

## What to make

Make the kind of thing Scratchboard exists for: high-contrast illustration of animals, machines and figures, or giving dark packaging and posters a hard engraved light. Choose one subject and hold it across all four.

## Structure comes from Scratchboard

- Sharp white lines cut from a black ground
- Contour and highlight joined by the same blade marks
- Crossed lines and dots producing middle values
- Broad retained black with concentrated white detail

Composition: Begin with black and cut only lit contours and focal detail into white. Type and lettering: Use bold reversed headlines and keep fine copy in uninterrupted black fields.

## Accent comes from Woodcut, used sparingly

- Direction of the cut
- Hard black-white contrast
- Density of line
- The block's materiality

Let one material quality come from it: Ink black and paper; run the line direction along the form.

## Colour and feeling

Build the ground on #F4F0E5, carry the structure in #6F6458 and #090909, and let a single accent come from #8a6240. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.
Feeling to carry: rebellion, luxury, technique, nostalgia, exhilaration.

## Where they fight

- Scratchboard and Woodcut are techniques rather than looks. Decide which one runs last in the process, because that is the one that will show.
- Scratchboard and Woodcut stand roughly 1100 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.

## What goes wrong

- Scratchboard: Inverting a black-and-white photograph is not scratchboard. Direction and width of cuts must describe surface and light.
- Woodcut: Not a digital scuff texture. Design where the black stays and which way you carve.

## Across the four

Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture.

## Constraints

- Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work.
- Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work.
- Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.

Design specs for each entry: https://indexstyle.org/styles/scratchboard/design.md · https://indexstyle.org/styles/woodcut/design.md