White on Black

Here’s something that I’ve been working on for a while now.

You know when you have a sudden flash of inspiration or idea and you just want to get it down on paper right away before you forget?  well, the white pens and black paper was right next to me, so I picked that up instead of going for the black on white.

And you know when you work on something too much and fiddle and fiddle with it, and then you do something that you don’t like, but then you can’t cover it up any more?  Well, that’s what happened last night – it started to get sloppy there at the corner.  So I said enough for this.

This is what it looks like under the lights, no filters or retouching.  The lighter coloured white is silver metallic on black.  It makes it shine a little under the lights.  The solid whites are done with the Sakura Gelly pens, in white.  Makes a nice highlighter and filler-in.

I wasn’t sure if I should fill some more, because to me, the bright whites were enough for a contrast.

This is the same picture, but with a mono filter, which makes it more black and white, than brownish.  It kind of looks flat to me now.  Maybe with this filter, it needs a little more shading for a more defined look.

I see some design elements that I like, which I will try to replicate and probably beat it to death until all the doodles start to look alike.  I keep reminding myself that I should practise other designs to incorporate more diversity in the drawings, but I end up drawing the same shapes and designs.  Something to work on another day …

Which look do you prefer?