@0xDB : hmm.. those honking big X's seem like they should be familiar. I want to say somewhere in europe, but I think that's wrong.
@API-Beast: that otter fur's looking nice.
@ambivorous: seems more structured. uhm, what I mean is the dabs are fighting each other much less than your previous landscape.
Bunch of media experiments mainly:
Conclusions:
* 6B chisel is a little hard to apply uniformly, but has a clear and IMO likeable aesthetic -- knife-ish.
* 6B by itself can do most of the modelling -- but charcoal is needed to get fully dark. Unfortunately it's a bit hard to apply when the paper's already semi-saturated
* H-2b are actually OK for weight, when used correctly
* something finer, like HB or so, maybe a technical pencil, is needed to resolve particularly finely spaced areas in modelling (see the book image for example. Paper edges 'turn' very quickly which isn't very representable with a coarse tip -- unless you scale up excessively)
* Modelling fully accurately (ie. increasing darkness globally, not just locally, with distance) is more doable than I thought, but still a challenge (cf. lack of value range). Some work on seeing if it could be compensated by simply making 'strips' of modelling more dense as the object recedes (which is physically accurate anyway.)
* particularly planar objects like bricks can be reduced to a pointcloud (collection of weighted contours) which can then be blended between relatively quickly to complete modelling
Starting on Nicolaides 5A now.