- Chrome Rising 2
She's lookin' pretty shiny at this stage! The lower section is the most tedious - where I worked to get a smooth, light value (but not pure white) on the hood of the car. I used an eyebrow tattoo needle to pull off some of the black (the rougher parts that are still visible) and a #16 X-acto blade to carefully blend the rough pattern. You can see the final value in the upper left section of the hood. - Chrome Rising 4 - Detail
Detail of stage 4 - Chrome Rising 1
Early stage of this one, plenty left to do at this point, but I was happy with how it was going. 6" x 6" scratchboard drawing of a 1941 Cadillac hood ornament. From my own reference photo. - Scotia 6
Scotia's portrait with scratching to soften the ink I added in the previous stage. Also new: highlights in her eyes! - Scotia 3
Update on Scotia's portrait. That large black blob area needs to be scratched... - Nigerian Goat Kid
Just 3 days old! - Scotia 7
Scotia's portrait with watercolor added to her fur & nose. Nearly finished at this point, but it needs some fine-tuning here and there, and to be a bit darker overall. - Chrome Rising - Final
"Chrome Rising" - 6" x 6" scratchboard. 1941 Cadillac hood ornament, from my own reference photo.
Scratched with a #16 X-acto & an eyebrow tattoo needle (on the hood of the car), re-inked (stippling) with a technical pen.
I was mostly happy with the previous version of this drawing, but the contrast between the hood & the background in the corner bothered me. It pulled the eye right off the edge. I re-worked the hood to make it darker and now it reads better. I stippled with a technical pen to make the entire hood darker, and then scratched to blend & add highlights.
Part of the reason I didn't anticipate the issue in the corner is that I usually erase the backgrounds in Photoshop to save printer ink and avoid distraction from the subject. This a case where that worked against me, because in the photo, the background was white, so I wasn't seeing that contrast between the hood & the solid black background until I was finished. See the next 2 images - my reference photos... - Chrome Rising - Reference Photo 2
To give me a better idea of how to re-work the hood, I took that section of the reference and made it darker. That brought up some details that I could incorporate. - Chrome Rising - Reference Photo 1
Here's the original reference photo. You can see the hood was white, but without a dark background, the contrast situation wasn't distracting. - Pygmy Goat
Very stylish Pygmy Goat - Ronin 2
More progress on the car. That "STAY AWAY" lettering took a while to get right, and I'm knocking it back with a tattoo needle. There's still a lot of "sketchy" stuff going on - just to block things in. That's the beauty of scratchboard, I can tidy all that up as I go along. There's plenty of blending work to do where the drawing shifts from positive to negative, and that section under his paws will take some time. And THEN I can start on Ronin! Since he's in front, I want to have all the underlying work done, so I can layer his fur on top - Ronin 8
Now with color! Not quite done, but in the home stretch - needs a little scratching to fine tune and add back some lights, and then probably one more pass with color. This is two layers of color. I prefer to go a little lighter than I want and layer than get the color on too dark and have to scratch more than I'd like. - Ronin - Reference Photo
My reference photo of K9 Ronin - taken at an Sacramento Sheriff K9 Association event in 2014. - Ronin 6
On the downhill side of this 9 x 12 mountain! Obviously, I need to finish scratching his shoulder. I've intentionally over-scratched in the dark areas of his face; I'll go back in and re-ink/fine tune those parts after I get his shoulder scratched, and there are some shadowed parts of his fur that need re-inking. Even though I will color Ronin, I want the scratching to speak for itself - the color will kick it up a notch and separate him from the car