Ink Experiments

Considering it’s Inktober, I decided to experiment with using ink. I bought some pen refills and opened them and mixed them with water. They turned out in a really nice green colour, which was a surprise as the pen refills were meant to be black ink. I first did some messing about with the inks, trying to create forms with using S shapes and basically filling the page up. It didn’t work too well but I could use these pages later on as textures for example; it was also a good warm up for me. I also drew some animals with the ink as you can see and tried to make it as messy as possible. Basically I’m getting comfortable with using these inks before I try to create any creatures.   

For my next attempt, I then tried using a straw to push the ink across the page to get more tighter and defined lines. This was really fun and as the ink dried, it created different colours and gradients, which added more definition to the page. I tried to visualise shapes within the ink, to see if I could create any creatures from it. One of the pages looked remarkably like a bird when the page was flipped on its side. I decided to develop this image further to see what kind of creature I could create with it.

As you can see from the images I drew over the ink in photoshop and rendered the image out. I also created a mood board of the animals that the ink drawing reminded me of as I was painting it. Obviously the main animal I thought the ink looked like was a bird, it also looked like it had both frog legs and bird claws. As I was painting the creature it also began to look like a lionfish. All of this was unintentional but a lot of fun.

For the creature itself, I decided that it could be an amphibian, mostly living in water using its wing like fins to move around as they constantly grow because they are so delicate and tear easily. Using their frog legs in water also helps them boost their speed and using their bird claws to catch small prey such as insects and small fish. On land they like soft watery ground such as swamps, riverbeds or beaches; they use their legs and body to move through the wet ground looking for worms to eat. I intend to develop this creature further to see how it can be altered for the better in terms of design. With using the ink technique, I believe that this image was a fluke to be honest as they other drawings are very difficult to image anything from. I want to continue on with experimenting with using ink to see if I could find a technique that is good for quick creature design.

Overall, I quite like the creature I created, as I’ve said before I want to develop its design further, figure out its anatomy and play about with its colour scheme.