Orc at Night

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Every morning, I try to do a 30-40 minute warm up with ink of something that I'm really in the mood to draw. While the projects I work on are all really fun, the selfish artist in me just wants to draw what I want to draw, and I've found that these sessions yield some pretty fun and interesting results (though they don't often result in a finished work). Sometimes its nice not to have the pressure of a deadline.

In any case, this piece is a result of me messing with lots of ink and acrylic white on paper. I was considering doing something more...erm...complicated with the color, but I'm actually really happy with how this quick flat treatment came out.

The design for this dapper fella came out of my sketchbook. I drew him up during the weekend while watching Mutant Hunt with a house full of friends. (I believe this movie is best experienced Mystery Science Theater 3000 style.)


I used photoshop to blow him up 200% for the ink, printed him on cheap printer paper and inked him up with chinese painting brushes on Canson Marker Pro Layout paper (which subsequently buckled like crazy under the massive amount of sumi ink and white acrylic I laid down. Thankfully, the scanner flattened it out). The final ink was scanned in 3 pieces (I like to work big, the final for this was approx 13" x 16") and cobbled in PSCS4 with the "Auto Align."


click to enlarge
Used the bitmap filter (50% threshold @ 600 dpi) on the above ink for a crisp flat. Seriously debating doing a screen print of this to get back into the habit of them, and to see how much detil I can get out of an "at home" burning process.