Makernet was a little cagey about their process, but my samples show shading in the color. They were using a full-color process where any (or all) colors could be produced in a single pass.

You are right that pad/silk printing would be too limiting if your goal would be to print anything. The goal of pad printing is just to put _a_ color on a board, and then modify your design to that (or two colors, with the tide pod). There are definite tradeoffs. Good work.