Ink fairy - WIP

demotlj

I’m mostly posting this so that I’ll feel committed to finish it. I haven’t done a contest since the pandemic shut us down here in March and I have felt creatively dry (probably because adjusting to going virtual for work was taking so much creativity.) I spent the summer doing watercolors of birds instead of illustrations. Anyway, I decided to make myself submit something this month just to try to get my mojo going again. Here is my rough sketch and value study. Can you tell what she’s doing?

Neha Rawat

@demotlj This is so cute! I'm reading it as the girl dressing up as an ink bottle to try and attract the ink fairy and is ready with a camera. That's smart!

I love that the ink fairy is a cutesy animal. I do think you can push the value range a lot more especially on the ink bottle character.

Julia

Lovely idea!

demotlj

@Neha-Rawat I'm glad to know it reads correctly. I agree about the values. I was actually thinking about this as I went to sleep last night!

Does anyone know if the contest allows for ink washes? I don't see why it wouldn't but wondered what others think.

chrisaakins

@demotlj I did ink wash. I think as long as it is black and white and grey it counts.

Braxton

Really cute! For me, the character in the costume reads really well (and is a great Halloween costume idea btw!), but the fairy itself doesn’t scream “ink fairy” to me quite as much as it maybe cold? Also looking at the background, I see some drawings and stuff that could be related to the story, but I’m not totally sure?

Braxton

Also, just a thought: if the ink fairy loves ink bottles, maybe he would be really excited to see such a big one (i.e. Ellie)

demotlj

@Braxton It's a m-ink fairy I will make him (her?) blacker to be more ink-like but I decided to draw an animal instead of a more typical fairy because I like drawing animals more than people. This was also a good reason to stick Ellie in a costume!

I'll work on the fairy's expression. I think you are right that a little more anticipation or delight or surprise would be good.

Braxton

Love the idea of the fairy (not sure why I gendered them!) as an animal, especially a mink

Scharon

@demotlj this is great :)) !

demotlj

So here is what I finally came up with. I started out trying to do it with actual ink washes and dip pen but wasn’t liking how the washes were working so I went to Procreate and did essentially the same thing except digitally. I’ll probably call it done unless someone sees something glaringly (is that a word?) wrong.

(just noticed that Ellie apparently has her ink in gallon sized bottles! Or 4 liter bottles for the metric crowd.)

Braxton

Love it! The cross-hatching gives it a great atmosphere.

Braxton

@demotlj Can I ask what brushes you used in procreate?

demotlj

@Braxton Just the studio pen because I was trying as much as possible to replicate real inking. I did do a light wash at the end with a watercolor brush to just tie everything together and also put a layer of "hot press paper" on multiply after finishing the whole thing to give it the paper texture that I would get if I did it traditionally, but it's 99% black inking with the studio pen.

Braxton

@demotlj thanks!

aska

fun idea!