Wanted- Inks over Tony Parker

So Tony is a man. Not THE man, but a man. But I also think he is part machine. Not quite sure. He is like Billy Tucci, all big strong dude but at the same time elegant artist with a fine touch.

I have wanted to work on an actual project with Tony for years and so far it has not lined up for us. So last year he gave me this to do for fun and maybe we could sell them as prints or whatever. I'm just in it for the experience.

And the challenge, apparently. Now Tony really wanted to see if I could make this piece work. I have made some pretty busy images readable in the past but this was a little different. The approach reminded me of the wreath Hawkman cover over Finch ryanwinn.deviantart.com/art/Br… . Lots of white space and tons of detail on a small percentage of the page. Everything is foreshortened and layered over itself. Now to make this pop.

I don't like using halos. Never have. Sometimes it's a necessity, sometimes the penciler demands it, and sometimes it's just fun to play with technique. Now the eye creates a slight halo around object in the real world, this is reflected light creating almost a corona around objects and people. Take a look, it's there. So I lead with that as my excuse for using halos on this page.

I still feel like I could have done a better job on the halo/pop around the eagle and the handle bars. But I didn't want to go thicker with the contour line. The trick on making her right arm pop against the exhaust pipes was only connecting some lines of her arm to the pipe, upper and lower, create a lesser halo in between. Take a look and see if that made sense.

Then the boots needed to read. Especially her left one hidden behind the tire. So zip-a-tone with white out for the highlights. I felt sort of Richard Bennet at this point. But then there was still no pop for the girls head and shoulders. So I added the zip-a-tone on the seat cushion and that made it for me. She had some dark to pop against.

I probably could have gone tighter on some of the tech work but it was all penciled free hand. The only thing I really was unhappy about was the center ring on the front wheel. The wheels were all freehand and I though I had the right shape but-NO! I then hoped it wouldn't look off with all the spokes added but...oh well. 

The logo was hand drawn by Tony and I frisked it off and used the same big dry brush for the tires. I love hand cutting friskett paper!

Mostly Raphael number 2 and some Deleter nib.

Tony on DA- tonyparkerart.deviantart.com/