Original Completion Date: June 1, 2014
Another round at Shadowcat and her beloved dragon. Actually this was another exercise in inking restraint, where I withheld the option of putting down any sort of hatching whatsoever.
Since I've been tinkering with this drastic change in inking style, I have found that the secret to restraint in inking is actually... restraint in drawing. I have spoken before about the compulsion to fill the page with detail (see the Alien Legion piece for reference if necessary), and how it all seems to come from an inexplicable aversion to untouched, white space on the paper. That part of my process is certainly at its highest point during inking... but I am learning that those decisions start when a pencil is in my hand. Occasionally it even rears its head during the initial blue pencil phase.
Forcing myself to resist such urges, such as in this piece, helps me consider the "how" and "why" behind all of it. I think that heavy detail I love so much is, in many ways, a partially subconscious behavior that probably started a long, long time ago in the evolution of my style. Hatching adds complexity, and visual interest... but it also serves to hide things as well.
My lines aren't as graceful as I'd like. Sure, the vector process mangled those above a bit more than I liked, but even without that step, my lines just don't seem to possess an inherent elegance like those in the works of Josh Middleton or even Paul Smith. Perhaps deep down I'm not happy about it, and I'm subconsciously hiding something that I don't like in my own work?? We can dig as deep as we'd like here about the psychological foundations of an artist's drawing style... but I do think I've arrived to the conclusion that less detail will come much easier if I focus on the quality and grace of my lines.
So in other words, I'm switching to a much softer graphite tomorrow, haha!!