Through the Hatch

Take a peep inside...

This was a really relaxing draw. Col-erase on 220 gsm Bristol board.

As before I started with the easy grid method.

Working top left to bottom right, I started with the hatch border. It was a little strange starting drawing from the immediate foregound, but as this was a border with a dark edge it worked out fine. I also started on some of the darker background here too.

Though tempted to move on to the main figure I put in the left side background here. I left the looser cross hatching to give a rough gain effect.

Next staring on with the hair. It is slow going but gives a satisfying finish. I left it a bit light here to come back later with some darker tones.

Finishing off the hair frames the space for the face nicely.

 So as not to loose the facial features when I start adding the face skin tone the eyes and brows were added. There was a nice light reflection I wanted to catch here. The eyes were also made a bit darker than in the ref.

Starting on the left I added the darker skin tones and again made them darker than in the ref to give more shape. At this stage the edge of the face was not well defined.

I then added some more background to mark out where the edge of the figures body is places as it is mainly well lit.

I really liked the effect of adding the gag bar, as it brought contrast to the image and helped to define the contours of the face.

Adding the loops to the gag bar provided the final definition for the sides of the face.

Finally I finished the border for the hatch and darkened the tone across the image.