Digital Inks Gone Wild

Who:
Not too long ago, I did some black & white work for New Haven Games' Myth & Magic series. I think they were all for the Game Master's book, but I'm not positive.

What:
The job hit my sweet spot in that they were asking for some character and creature designs, and then a handful of half page illustrations as well. Never one to make things too easy on myself and in a moment of what was surely pure depravity, I decided to boost my normal digital inking style to absurd levels of detail, fall back into the ultra hatching of my youth, and basically adopt an impossible method of working. I mean, I love how they all turned out, but I have never had digital inks take so long to produce or create as many finger cramps as all this work did. Sheesh!

How:
Complaining aside, I really, really enjoyed these pieces. The one shown here is a special one in that a younger version of him is featured in one of the half page illos. That was fun to do. Another fun bit of trivia is that I used Clinton Boomer (That Boomer Kid http://thatboomerkid.tumblr.com/) as the face model for this guy (with permission, of course).
For me, Digital inks (and paint, for that matter) take place entirely in Photoshop. I carry a monthly membership with Adobe to make sure I always have the latest tools and updates, and never suffer down time from tech issues. I also have a Wacom Cintiq, which I am very thankful for. These are about the extent of my tools on jobs like this aside from a sketchbook , a mechanical pencil, and a white eraser. I always work up sketches for clients before I dig into the digital work. When the client approves the sketche(s), I get busy. Usually it's about heavy lines and dark areas first, then details. As I mentioned above, I went a bit insane with the textures on all these. I had been painting a lot when I got this contract, and wanted to still see all the textures of everything without color. It's become something of an obsession with me over the last few years. There is some shading in here, but mostly what you are seeing is a lot of give and take. Laying down lines, and erasing them out. I suppose that goes back to my first love - working in pencil. Another goal in doing all these pieces was to clearly define values. I worked extra hard to locate and accentuate light and shadow on all these pieces.

Note: I could not find any links or uses of this image other than my own. Not sure why.

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