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Thursday, August 7, 2008

Sody and her curves



My latest Sody ink. I dunno if it's cuz I'm a dude and study womanly curves every other second of the day, but I think this is probably one of my best inks so far.

This time I was really concentrating on keeping all the forms together with lines in the correct hierarchy since I noticed on my previous inking with Sody some of the forms turned out a bit wonky since I didn't use the proper lines to contain them. This time I think I was fairly successful.

*Edit

After looking at Katie's tips (thanks Harmke), my eyes are a little more adjusted on what to look for in bad inking...

1. Blunt Ends: I did notice a few of them while inking, but had such a hard time making nice smooth sharp points with Illustrator that I'd just leave them in (especially if it was where two seperate strokes met). But sharp points really do make a huuuuge difference in quality and I'll be sure to fix those in future inks.

2. Follow Through: At the top of the head between the two strands of hair, I've got a line that doesn't follow through with the other lines of the head it's supposed to connect.

3. Lines too think: Some of my lines are too thick, especially around the hair region. This thickness probably doesn't help in creating those blunt ends either.

4. Tangents: The piece of hair that comes down in front of Sody's face, I used two strokes that went all the way down, and where they meet it does look a little wonky throwing off the nice curve that should have been created around the front of her face. I should have stopped one of those strokes where the weird tangent occurs.

5. Changing/Toning down angles: I really messed up the two pieces of hair that come out of the back of Sody's head. The angle on the bottom piece of hair got completely destroyed, so instead of looking cool and hip with that nice angle, that piece of hair looks a little like a limp dick, which is soooooo not what Sody is about. The top piece of hair also got a little fatter and stubbier, so again the hair loses it's hipness.

6. Not Always Tapering When I Should: Some of my lines don't taper when they should, like the left hip line. It starts off nice and thin near the belly, gets thick, then stays thick, and I think if I had tapered the end a little better, the hip would look a little nicer and sexier.

Things I Did Well

1. Good use of think thin:
I did pretty well this time creating a hierarchy of lines. The legs, hips, hair, and shoulders got nice thick tapery lines, then as you go down the hierarchy the lines change thickness, like going from body line to shirt line to shirt wrinkle line.

2. Organic Curves: I was able to keep/create a lot of nice organic curves keeping the image alive. One of my favorite is the right torso/belly line. It's smooth but still organic and changes with the shape of Sody's body keeping it "meaty" (although Sody isn't meaty per se, hehe).

3. Points and Tapers: Some of my points are sharp, mostly around the leg/hip region. And a lot of the lines have that nice fat "S" line feeling, where you start small, get fatter, then end thinner (like the left leg line).

3 comments:

CrazyHarmke said...

You're getting better and better :)
Here are some tips from Katie Rice, they helped me a lot!

CrazyHarmke said...

whoops forgot the link ;)
WARP!

Chris said...

Thanks for the comments, and thanks a lot for those Katie links. Those inking tips are top notch! Can't wait to get started on my next inks with all that new advice in my head.