Embracing the Imperfections of My Ink Wash Illustration

Freeze Ink Illustration by Ralph Contreras

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.

I’ve done a few ink-wash illustrations in the past. But for this illustration, I kinda feel like I lost myself in it. I tried to compensate by adding a solid black background and foreground. I added hatching with both thin and thick brush strokes.

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.

The ink illustration is a bit of a mess, but I did have fun with it and the inking does have a lot of energy. So I feel like it’s a success in my inking progress.

Sketch Card – New Captain America

Sketch-Card-Captain-America
Captain America by Ralph Contreras

Captain America, Bucky Barnes
Avengers Sketch Card – Day 1

2011 is a new year and I’m giving myself a new personal challenge. Last year I did a couple of sketch cards. I had intended to do one every day, unfortunately, I didn’t follow through. But this year I’m rechallenging myself! Heck yeah! My goal is to have 365 Sketch Cards done by the end of the year!

The cards I drew last year were of Thor and Hawkeye of the Avengers. This year I’m going to continue with the Avengers-themed sketch cards. I’ve always been a massive fan of the Avengers, in fact the first comic book I read was an Avenges book. Also, the Avengers movie is being filmed in my backyard of Albuquerque, NM this summer. So it just feels right!

Here’s my first Avengers sketch card for the year, the New Captain America a.k.a Bucky. It’s a quick sketch that took me about 16 minutes. I used an HB .05 mechanical pencil. The reflective nature of the costume was challenging, but I think it came out ok. I had fun with this sketch card!

This blog post was originally published on my other website Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Ralph’s Art Blog.

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