The Darkest Hour - 1

I am sorry, but this was bound to happen: no new page today. I have been a little bit careless - I thought I was much further with page 166 than I actually am, and I had entirely forgotten that I needed to figure out page 167 (and possibly a few after that) until I can truly draw 166. If I had got round to working on the page yesterday, as I intended, I would have realised this more or less on time. As it is, I wanted to start inking today and discovered I had nothing to ink, and not enough time to draw two or three pages. My bad. Too little sleep and too much procrastination...

What I have been meaning to show you for a while now, though, is the first page of the 'real' Darkest Hour. I made this with guidance from my art teacher. I'd love to hear your opinion on the technique, because I confess that I am not 100% convinced myself.

The idea behind the all-pencil approach is to keep me from being too clean and making my drawings too stiff, the way I tend to do with my usual inking. It should also allow me to learn about shadowing and texture in such a way that I can correct mistakes, which is less obvious with inks.



(lettering is not final)

Now, whereas drawing with pencils is great fun, there are a few drawbacks that really bother me:

1. I don't like how the pencils scan. (Trust me, the original looks better - and I don't know how to make this look better in Photoshop. I tried, but this is the best I can do.)
2. This stuff is difficult to fixate. Also, you brush over it accidentally with your hand or sleeve and whoopsie, all your whites are grey.
3. I kind of miss my ink.

Opinions? I'd love to hear them!



New page next Sunday! (I hope :p...)

THE STORY SO FAR:
( Part I: The Darkest Hour )

( Part II: Sunrise )