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Embracing the Imperfections of My Ink Wash Illustration

From Captain America to Cosmic Horror: Diving into an Ink Wash Illustration

Here’s my Inktober illustration for the prompt “Freeze”. This one is kinda all over the place, lol. Approaching this illustration I knew I wanted to try the ink wash technique. I’ve seen so many great Inktober illustrations done with ink wash I knew I wanted to do one too. It’s a cool technique that adds different tones of grey by adding more or less water to the ink.

The illustration was done with a pentel brush pen and a LePen Technical pen. For the subject of Freeze, I illustrated a figure frozen in ice and discovered by a mountain climber. I was trying to evoke a cosmic horror feel to the piece. like something out of At the Mountains of Madness being discovered in the ice, but I think it might actually look like Captain America when he frozen in ice.

Inktober Unleashed: Embracing the Energy of Spontaneous Inking

The Art of Letting Loose: Finding Inspiration on Inktober day 3

So I really struggled with Inktober’s third day prompt of Bait. I think it actually shows in the inking too. I had no real idea what I wanted to ink. Then it came to me, if there’s bait then that equals a trap. So I illustrated a box trap with a bushel of carrots as the bait.

I went straight into the inking with this illustration, no pencil sketch to start with. I think you can tell with the unevenness of the line work. But I think that really worked for this ink drawing. There’s an energy that I would have lost if I had over worked it. I used a Pentel brush pen and I feel it created really nice organic ink strokes

Robot Revolution: Unplugged and Unleashed for Inktober’s Mindless

Mindless and Mighty: Inking an Android to Life for Inktober Day 2

Here’s my second inking for this year’s Inktober. The prompt was “Mindless”. I had a few ideas of what I could draw. A crazy person or maybe someone lobotomized. But I liked the idea of illustrating a robot or android with the top of its head coming off. Showing that there’s no traditional brain, just tubes, and wires.

Unlike my previous Inktober illustration, I did start with a pencil drawing instead of going straight to inks. Just to get a general idea of what I wanted the android to look like, I drew a quick sketch of the head. I inked over the pencil sketch with my new LePen Technical Drawing Pen I picked up at Blicks art store for this year’s Inktober. The pen gave nice control that let me ink with steady contour lines. I also tried to add some hatching and solid black areas to give the illustration some depth.

Inking the Flames: My Johnny Cash Inspired Ink Illustration

Brushing Life into Flames and Faces: Inktober Day 1

Here’s my first inking for this year’s inktober. The prompt is “Ring” and I knew exactly what I wanted to illustrate when I read that. I was inspired to do an ink drawing of Johnny Cash’s song “Ring of Fire”.

For this Inktober illustration, I went straight to inking, with no pencil sketch to start off with. This is a bit of a challenge for me because I usually like to start with a pencil sketch. I used a small brush and India ink, I wanted organic flowing lines. When I ink with a pen or nib my illustrations can look stiff sometimes. And I wanted to capture the movement and feel of the flames, I felt a brush would help there.

I inked a face inside an engulfing ring of fire. There are deep shadows and highlights from the flames cast across the face. The face was supposed to be Johnny Cash, but it kinda looks like a young Jack Kirby to me, lol.

Sci-Fi Vibes: Illustrating an Epic Female Alien

From Sketch to Color: Creating an Alien for Take Me To Your Leader Tuesday

I love a good art challenge and there are so many good ones these days. So I was excited to participate in a fun art challenge called Take Me To Your Leader Tuesday. This challenge was thought up by talented comic artists Marshall Lee and Scott Serkland.

I follow both these fun and energetic artists on youtube. They started the challenge a while back and decided to start it up again. The challenge is to draw an alien and post it on your social media with the hatch tag #TakeMeToYourLeaderTuesday. I posted my alien on my Instagram page.

I wanted to draw someone fun and show the whole figure. I’ve been focusing on drawing faces lately. So I knew I wanted to draw the full figure. I drew a female alien with a staff and antenna on her head. First I started off with a sketch using my hb mechanical pencil. Then added details and shadows in the pencil sketch. I feel the drawing came out well. Maybe a little stiff, but I like it.

Then I inked the pencil sketch and added a few extra hatch lines. I’ve really started enjoying inking my drawings. I then colored the inked drawing with Prisma color markers. I tried to add shadows and depth with the colors. I colored the character’s skin blue and didn’t even realize I made her look like an Andorian from Star Trek. Andorians have blue skin and antennae on their heads.

Unlocking Creativity: Exploring Croquis for Character Design

Streamlining Character Creation: Embracing Croquis Templates

Character Design is one of my favorite things to do. In fact, I’ve probably created over 100 characters in the past few years. For my comic book, design challenges, and just for fun. but sometimes I feel like I’m spending way too much time just drawing the form. So I decided to give Croquis a try to let the creative juices flow. A Croquis is a figure template you can trace over and add a character’s costumes to.

Character created using a Croquis Template

A few years ago I created a female Croquis for my other blog Comic Book Graphic Design. I took that template and extended it to have 3 figures. Here’s one of the characters I created using the Croquis. A Roller Derby type character with spikes. It was fun just to add the elements of the costume to the character and not have to worry about drawing the form. I traced the figure and added goggles, spikes, and a big “A” on her belt. She has a very 90’s X-Men feel, well at least to me, lol.

Quick Sketching: Capturing the Essence of a Face

Finding Beauty in the Unfinished: The Story of a Sick-Day Sketch

A few weeks ago, I started a face drawing that I didn’t finish because I got sick. Despite its incomplete state, I think what I drew came out good. Even though I wasn’t feeling well, I embraced the challenge and focused on drawing as much as I could. I was able to sketch this full-page drawing of a Japanese man.

This was a quicker sketch, about 10 minutes with my 0.7 HB pentel mechanical pencil. I’m particularly proud of how his eyes came out. Sometimes, things take unexpected turns like getting the flu, but we can adapt and make the best of the situation.

Going Big: Exploring Larger Faces in My Sketchbook

Challenging Myself to Draw Bigger and Bolder Faces

I recently completed a few new face drawing in my new sketchbook, and I wanted to challenge myself by using the entire page for one face sketch. Usually, I fit around four faces or heads on each page. So it was a challenge for me to fill the entire page with just one face.

While I strive for accuracy in my sketches, it’s important to note that my sketchbook is all about capturing and expressing creativity, rather than achieving perfection. So, I embraced the imperfections in this drawing. Her eyes may be slightly oversized, and her lips a touch too small, but overall, I’m still very happy with the outcome of this sketch.

As with many of my sketches, I found the original reference photo on Pinterest. It’s an incredible platform that provides a wealth of inspiration for drawing.

Faces Unveiled: A Gallery of New Portraits from My Sketchbook

Sketching Expressions: A New Sketch Book and New Faces

Here are some faces from my new sketchbook. I’m always buying new sketchbooks because they inspire me to keep creating. I have a small stack of unfinished sketchbooks though, lol. I found a nice variety of different faces on Pinterest, which served as a great reference for drawings in my new sketchbook.

I’ve been challenging myself to draw as many faces as I can. A few months ago, I attempted to draw 100 faces as part of the 100 Heads challenge. While I didn’t quite reach that goal, I had a lot of fun in the process. Now, I’ve decided to start again and continue drawing as many heads as possible. It’s not about the specific number this time around, but rather about the practice and improvement.

Each of these head sketches took me about 20 to 30 minutes to complete. I wanted to strike a balance between capturing the essential features and maintaining a sense of spontaneity in my drawings. And I must say, I’m really pleased with the way they turned out. I learn something new and gain more confidence in my artistic abilities.

Exploring Shadows and Highlights in a Side View Portrait

Quick Sketch with a Focus on Light and Dark

Here’s my latest sketchbook entry. I decided to draw a side-view portrait. I found a photo of Zoe Saldaña in her iconic Gamora makeup as my reference, although I didn’t focus too much on capturing her likeness or the details of the character. Instead, I wanted to experiment with shadows and highlights, emphasizing the play of light on the subject matter.

For this sketch, I took a different approach by incorporating more dark shading than I typically do. I’ve had success with using shadows in some of my recent drawings. So I wanted to create go deeper and bring out the contrast between the light and dark areas. It was a quick drawing session, lasting about 5 minutes, I used a 0.7 HB Pentel mechanical pencil for the drawing.

Although the resemblance to Zoe Saldaña or Gamora may not be immediately recognizable, I’m very happy with how the overall sketch drawing turned out. It served as a valuable exercise in exploring different shading techniques and capturing the subject with shadows.