Inktober - Armor

FBI, drop your weapon! Nah, just kidding. No feds here. As soon as I saw prompt Armor, a bulletproof vest popped into my mind instead of the armor that knights used to wear. Because my linework isn’t the greatest when it comes to using brushes, and I think, in general, it’s quite stiff, I wanted to do something fairly detailed to challenge myself and therefore used the reference I mentioned above. I can’t say I am a regular player of CS:GO right now since my machine is waiting for a replacement on a faulty part, but I have played a bit. I don’t suck at it completely, but you can only git gud by playing, right? Though, sometimes I feel if you overplay a game, you can also get worse xD

_{Let’s talk about tools and the process. Hahnemühle Mixed Media paper 310 g/m² 24x32 cm, Diamine drawing & calligraphy ink in Jet Black, Pigma micro pigment ink brush, Pigma Micron ink rapidograph 04, Faber-Castell pencil 2B, Grene Art synthetic watercolor brush 4 (poor thing now has a bandage since I broke it nearly in half by trying to use it as a plastic wrapping remover for the new inks, also the bristles appear to degrade as it is not suitable for ink)}

I started with a light sketch from the reference with the Faber-Castell pencil in 2B. When sketching using the pencil, I struggle a lot with causing as little damage to the paper as possible. It could be what contributes to the stiffness of my linework. The watercolor paper does not respond well to the eraser, and it can affect the look of the paints you add on top of the damage. I find the same issue with mixed media paper.

I then used a Pigma ink brush for outlines, and let me tell you, these brushes are tricky to handle as to how hard you press can affect the thickness or thinness of the line. It will take me a while to train my inexperienced hand. Since the drawing was fairly big, I used a thicker outline this time, and to fix some of the wackiness of the lines I used my trusted Pigma Micron ink rapidograph 04.

Now, painting with ink is fun! It does dry faster than most paints, so that is something to keep in mind. You got to be quick with it. The way I achieved the highlighted parts was by adding water in those particular places. Painting the whole thing in the same-ish tone and then adding water to highlight (ink is scared of water and will try to escape to the sides), or more ink in the darker spots. The effects that water creates are my favorite. It makes the whole piece look rustic and worn, which I find fitting for this one. What do you think?