Painting Ink: Black Panther

The first of possibly three black panther fan art series. I am really excited for the movie coming out next month! Usually I channel this excitement into making fanart. Being a nerd and artist myself I just had to give justice to the king of wakanda.

SUPPLIES

Drawing Pencil/Mechanical Pencil

kneeding Eraser

Water Color Pad

Brushes

Ink or preferred painting materials

THE CONCEPT

I usually start out my concepts by looking for references that match what I have in mind. Poses and angles are really important. Sometimes it takes a lot of digging up, stock photos, google images, comic book covers and even fan art.

Having a reference is important, even the best minds use wooden models or mirrors to as references. It keeps the proportions right, make sure that whatever you are sketching looks right.

SKETCHING

I love to sketch but its not really my favourite part of the process. Its tedious and I get frustrated a lot and the perfectionist in me takes over.

Initial sketches are always wonky. It looks discouraging but breaking down your subject into lines and shapes is important. It helps your brain see the image as it is instead of what you think it should be.

After over an hour of sketching and pencil work, T’challa is looking good. I managed to add a bit of shading so I can know which areas need to be painted.

Side by side with the reference its not perfect but its close. It will never end up perfect and that’s okay. We perceive things differently. And our imagination of the characters vary and that translates into our art.

PAINTING

I love this part. Just me and my brush. I have grown a certain control over my ink, watercolour and water flow over the years, it’s a skill that you have to work on and develop. I remember how bad my early watercolour works were.

The General rule for watercolour is Light to dark that sometimes applies to ink but for this piece I’m doing dark to light since it goes with my style.

I wanted a monochrome piece so I’m using only one colour with 4-5 different tonal values, adding water to make it lighter or darker as you can see in the photo above. I usually mix these in separate containers to keep the consistency.

Fun fact: I usually get asked what ink I use, when I was a Civil Engineering student we had a technical drawing class and I had some drawing ink left over. So when I started painting I ended up using this ever since. Costs at around 100php or 2.00USD. Its cheep and one bottle will go a long way. Rotring and Steadler are good but you can use any brand really.

I started painting the major dark parts of the character. Using broad strokes at first then going into finer details.

Wait for the ink to dry the add the lighter tones and other details. Usually if I get in the zone while painting I forget to let the ink dry which may lead to a messy work full of smudges, so it’s important to be patient.

now the back ground is gonna be a bit tricky because you need to paint around the subject and avoid accidentally splashing ink. I use a broad brush for the background then use a finer brush as it gets close to the subject.

once your done let the ink dry, give it a few hours or even leave it overnight. The ink needs to be really dry for the next step which is to erase the remaining pencil work. Specially for pieces with heavy black elements erasing pencil work will bring a better contrast with lighter and darker elements.

After erasing the line work scan the photo, and do a bit of editing to reduce the scanner glare in the reflective areas of the painting.

FINAL

T’challa – Black Panther and King of Wakanda

Thanks for reading! If you like this post please upvote! Leave a comment if you have other ideas and techniques I can use for the next piece! Also comment if you’re an artist as well so I can follow you and your work!

‘Til next time! Stay Awesome Steemit!!

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