- 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. - Chrome Rising - detail of process on hood
Close up of the eyebrow tattoo needle. It has multiple sharp pins that create a linear scratch pattern. - Chrome Rising - detail of process on hood
The section on the bottom left shows how it looks after I've scratched w/the #16 X-acto blade. - Chrome Rising - detail of process on hood
I used the tattoo needle in the lengthwise direction, then in an angled direction (but not 90 degrees to the other direction). - Golden Retriever Pup
Golden Retriever Pup: 2" square scratchboard with colored ink. *sold* - Off Duty? - Final
Finished! 5" x 7" scratchboard (Ampersand Scratchbord), with watercolor and some India ink for re-inking & drawing long, black hairs. From my own reference photo taken at a dog play day many years ago. - Chrome Rising - detail of process on hood
My trusty #16 X-acto. I used it to further scratch the area where I've used the tattoo needle. That breaks up the linear effect, I want a smoooooth effect on the hood. - Sierran Treefrog
Sierran Treefrog: 2" square scratchboard with watercolor. *sold* - "Whuuut?" Pit Bull Pup
"Whuuut?": 2" square scratchboard in progress. All scratched, ready for color - Off Duty? 4
With color (watercolor). I didn't spend a ton of time on color-correcting this scan. The dog looks pretty accurate, but the water isn't quite right. I'll take more time when I scan the final. At any rate, in the home stretch at this point. Next:scratching to add highlights on the dog, and separate him from the background. - "Whuuut?" Pit Bull Pup
"Whuuut?": 2" square scratchboard with colored ink. *sold* - Ranger 2
First layer of scratching on the dog is finished. Also some re-inking in a few places to add darks back in. Watercolor on the water too. That's streaky in places, but scratching in select areas will fix that. Next steps on Ranger will be scratching/re-inking to fine-tune and build depth. Then I can add color to him.