Letting Loose: Embracing Imperfect Proportions with Jon Snow Illustration
Ok, I’ve fallen a little behind on Inktober again this year, it seems like that’s as much of my yearly tradition with Inktober too. I’m playing a little catch-up. Here’s my inking illustrator for the prompt of Snow.
For Snow, I wanted to do something fun. Being a huge fan of Game of Thrones, I decided to ink Jon Snow. I went straight to inking on this illustration using a 102 Hunts nib with no pencil sketch. The proportions are a little off. Jon Snow looks a little older, a little chubbier, and in deep thought. But I had fun getting the fuzzy look of the fur with hatching.
I’ve been having a good time with this year’s Inktober. It’s great to just let loose and not worry about being perfect. That’s how I approached this ink illustration of Jon Snow for the Snow prompt.
30 Characters Challenge 2010 – #1 Foot Soldier of the Cyber Lords
The Cyber Lords are a technologically advanced species that destroyed their home planet in “The Great War”. During the war, they would take inhabitants from other planets to be their Foot Soldiers. Using wormhole technology allowed them to travel through time and space to gather their armies.
They would modify their new soldiers by wiping their minds and reprogramming them. These new mindless beings would be outfitted with specialized cybernetic enhancements. Giving them great speed, strength, and agility. Their main weapon on the battlefields was an energy staff capable of leveling buildings. At the height of the war, each Cyber Lord had billions of Foot Soldiers. The surviving Cyber Lords seeing their world destroyed by the war made a truce. They agreed to leave the planet and use their wormhole technology to travel the universe and start their own individual societies. Using their vast armies of Foot Soldiers the Cyber Lords traveled the cosmos and began conquering worlds.
30 Characters Challenge Creative Notes: For this drawing, I decided to try a new method of drawing. I’ve noticed a lot of professional comic artists start their drawings with blue pencils. I just recently watched Modern Masters: In The Studio With George Perez DVD and George Perez used this method. So I wanted to try it too.
I started my drawing with blue lines. I used a 0.7 mechanical pencil. Very gesture and bulky, this helped me get the idea of where I wanted the drawing to go. I then refined the drawing using a .05 HB Mechanical Pencil, adding shadows and hatching. I’ve recently been sharpening my inking skills. What I do is ink other artists’ comic pages. It’s fun and has been helping me learn new techniques. So I was excited to bring this into my own work. I can see it in the inking of this character design. I like using a 102 nib and a size 4 stable brush.
This blog post was originally published on my former website, Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Artist Blog.
