Stephen King portrait pt2: Scratchboard

Somewhere along the preparation lines I decided my Stephen King piece might make a nice scratchboard, and thus afford me a good opportunity for self-challenge.  I'm always more comfortable laying black ink on a white surface, but given the light source in the image, it seemed appropriate to 'draw in' the light by scratching white into the black scratchboard surface.

After reworking my photoshop roughs with the blacks filled in, I had a pretty good sense of where I wanted to take it tonally.  It was both a blessing and a curse to have so completely refined the image in the rough stage, because I found myself both challenged to continually improve the final scratchboard, as well as frustrated to have set up certain expectations that were hard to let go of in the rendering stage.

In some ways I find the digital mockup more satisfying, whether due to the spontaneous handling, the smoother edges of the photoshop brushes, or the way I ended up handling the lighting on the body itself.  I'm almost tempted to do a second final drawing, this time drawing in black on claybord.

digital mockup