Mody Dick 4

This is the final piece of the series. I don't really know what to say about it. Like the rest it is a combination of digital and hand made elements. Again, I feel like I need to work a little bit more on my process but I feel like these pieces were a good learning experience.

Moby Dick 3

In this piece I tried to make the tail of the whale look huge and imposing. I was working with a very central composition, but bent the tail to give it a little movement. I'm pretty happy with how it came out, although I was toying with the idea of changing the hue of the cloud to more of a red to fit with the other images. I like the play between the intense black of the clouds and the stark white of the tail so I didn't change it, but I think I might later to make it fit into the series.

Moby Dick 2

In this piece I tried working scratch board into the piece. I have been working with scratch board for my comic, and I was trying to find a good way to work color into the otherwise black and white composition. I used scanned watercolor washes under the ink work to incorporate texture into the colored areas. I also tried locking the black ink layer and coloring over it, but it lost a lot of the contrast that I like. It also looked awkward because the coloring over the black was very flat and I was going for a more gritty feel. I got a lot of flack for the composition of the piece, and I agree that it looks awkward. If you couldn't guess the two white lumps with the black lump between is supposed to a drowning man. I have since learned to take more time when composing an image.

Moby Dick 1

I know I haven't posted in a while, but in usual fashion I have four pieces I have been working on for the past month. They are illustrations for Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick. I have been working back and forth between digital and manual mediums, trying to find a balance between the two. In this one I got a bit carried away with the acrylic, and I don't like how Ahab's face turned out. I feel like the experimentation has been good for me, but I still could use a more experience working this way.