My good friend Patrick Douglas has a new book coming soon, and I created a new art piece for him to use as a signature sheet. The book itself is great, and tells the story of an outcast girl who has stumbled into a lost tribe in a cave system.
Signature sheets, at their base level, just need to have a space for authors to sign, place notes, or even have numbering. Otherwise, they are pretty open to interpretation, from simple designs through highly elaborate designs. In this case, we decided simply to highlight one of the characters, a tribesman known as The Fox.
Since signature sheets are often grayscale or even simply black line art, I decided to do an original ink of it. Though early in my career I had a number of inks published, in the last couple of years I’ve been doing inks based on photos and still life. Those had a purpose, not only getting me back into ink, but also in working with photos. Using reference photos was something I’d never really done, so the ink works have provided me that experience.
In this case though, I wanted it to be fully original, not based on a photo at all. So, after some sketching and discussion with Pat, we ended up with the illustration you’ll see below. It was a good challenge, and a good place to spring from to do more original inks (Click on the image for a larger version).
The Fox
I wanted to leave the bottom area open for his signature, and I decided that a rough, unfinished look would be pretty interesting. I also decided to throw in a digitally colored and textured version as well. Simply because I have to (click on this one too for a larger version).
Overall, they were fun, and I’m hoping to start trying more original inks very soon. I’m looking forward to getting back to the elaborate, detailed inks that I used to do, and The Fox here gives me a bit more confidence moving forward.
