Added 1 new A* page:Man, I thought I had this one
and I was just gonna add a bit of gray wash for depth here and there, and I went to try using it to shade the cheek, and...could not seem to manage it. After going back and forth several times I just had to obliterate it, and even that I couldn't quite settle on; I scanned three (UPDATE: okay, four :|||) consecutive supposed "final" versions >_<; here is a photo of eh I think this was the first of 'em:
This page *is* the first time I've done major solid black shading on Selenis' face since going traditional, as far as I recall, which I think is long overdue, but dang, I gotta learn not to rely on big gray fills, especially when I have some perfectly good black and white around it; 'cause hours and hours later this final version isn't all that much better than the pre-wash one. Should'a stuck with it! (Well, aside from fixing the high hairline a bit.) GAR.
Speaking of overworking inks, it seems to me that Marvel (and other) comic artist Bill Sienkiewicz does just that in the second half of this video:
video on Youtube
He's good up through adding that amazing shock of hair, but I dunno, everything after that just seems like busy work that doesn't really help the portrait. Still it's an awful nice one and I wish I could do something that keen (what nice facial features! the wide narrow eyes, the long pert nose, the rumpled lips) and just off the cuff without pencils, at that! ... I could probably come closer if I didn't keep making myself try silly perspectives, like oh I could draw Selenis talking head-on, but no, that isn't dramatic and specific enough, let's have the view under her chin instead. >:| Say if you want to put a comic artist to the test next time you're having one do a sketch for you at a convention, ask them to draw the character's head angled up a bit--I bet they give you a dirty look! It's so much harder...at least for me. I bet Bill could do it in a snap. Still it was really plain ol' inability to do something interesting with big gray areas but still trying to use them that got me into trouble on this one.
I ordered yet another type of ink to experiment with! It is fairly cheap stuff and rather sketchy: PRO ART India Ink; waterproof, or so it says, but I like how one of the bullet points, instead of "acid free"--which is probably redundant but would have been reassuring--is "Conforms to ASTM D-4236"; ASTM D-4236 is just the regulation that says you have to announce toxic stuff on your label, so basically they're saying "our label is legal!" I wonder if a big list of toxic stuff is hiding away on the back of the bottle. >_> Anyway according to this ink review by Veronica Fish, PRO ART India Ink is very very black, and very waterproof, but so thick it KILLS BRUSHES. :o So I will be testing this stuff with one of my non-favorite brushes once it arrives. :P
Oh yeah, also in that video, in the first half you can see John Buscema inking with a Raphael brush (the orange end is the giveaway--at least, I think) , which *is* my current fave. :)
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