Inktober 2019 Retrospective | Day 2: Ankh

The sketch was better. Should I do a digital version of this piece, that'll be my base.

While Ankh, as he's called, is technically a man, because much of his character's identity is that he's someone's son, I'm always tempted to call him a boy. His face is round enough for it, at any rate.

Black eyebrows under black hair pose a weird issue. If they're under black bangs, they disappear, and the person just looks like they don't have any eyebrows. "Realism" dictates that I should just let them disappear, but then I would lose such a valuable source of personality and character. Sometimes, that's what you want, but most of my characters have eyebrows tailored to their personality as well as their face.

So what do you do? Either outline them or make 'em white. Given the detailing in his hair, I chose the latter. And that probably would have worked, had this been digital, but I forgot that these materials create texture. They still read as eyebrows, but they're not as clean as they could be.

Fortunately, I've been at this long enough to avoid producing something that's an absolute dumpster fire (God willing). It's a decent picture. Glad I produced it and all, but I'm not what I would call terribly fond of it. I will say, though, that despite the fact that the darkness of his skin doesn't come through as much as I'd like it to, these values are quite good. An overall positive, I'd say.

Thanks for reading.

#ink #inktober #midtone