More Rainmagic

Here's the raw ink work on Rainmagic pages 2 and 3. I'm working a bit more on page 4 tonight. I'm trying a couple of new things on these pages:

I'm trying to use more blacks. If you've seen Green Monk, you'll know that it's mostly linear. I want to create more shapes out of lights and darks. I'm finding I need to plan things out much more carefully in the penciling stage to get the lights and darks to balance out correctly.

I'm trying to figure out how to draw a dang forest. The most difficult stuff is the stuff in the mid-ground. It's not close enough that I want to draw every little detail, but it's not far away enough that I can just create a big mass and call it leaves.

I'm using a brush pen for all of this. The brush creates beautiful lines, but it requires more page turning to get the right angle. You also have to wait for it to dry, and oddly enough it puts more strain on my hand than using a micron. I think that because it does not have a rigid tip, I have to use my hand more for stability, and thus: hand-strain.

That joke* is funny if you know the story.

*joke courtesy of Annie Dayton