Chrome Rising 1
Early stage of this one, plenty left to do at this point, but I was happy with how it was going. 6" x 6" scratchboard drawing of a 1941 Cadillac hood ornament. From my own reference photo.
Chrome Rising 2 - Detail
Detail of the 2nd stage
Chrome Rising 2
She's lookin' pretty shiny at this stage! The lower section is the most tedious - where I worked to get a smooth, light value (but not pure white) on the hood of the car. I used an eyebrow tattoo needle to pull off some of the black (the rougher parts that are still visible) and a #16 X-acto blade to carefully blend the rough pattern. You can see the final value in the upper left section of the hood.
Chrome Rising 3
She's all blocked in at this stage! Plenty of fine-tuning left to do...
Chrome Rising 4 - Detail
Detail of stage 4
Chrome Rising - Final
"Chrome Rising" - 6" x 6" scratchboard. 1941 Cadillac hood ornament, from my own reference photo.
Scratched with a #16 X-acto & an eyebrow tattoo needle (on the hood of the car), re-inked (stippling) with a technical pen.
I was mostly happy with the previous version of this drawing, but the contrast between the hood & the background in the corner bothered me. It pulled the eye right off the edge. I re-worked the hood to make it darker and now it reads better. I stippled with a technical pen to make the entire hood darker, and then scratched to blend & add highlights.
Part of the reason I didn't anticipate the issue in the corner is that I usually erase the backgrounds in Photoshop to save printer ink and avoid distraction from the subject. This a case where that worked against me, because in the photo, the background was white, so I wasn't seeing that contrast between the hood & the solid black background until I was finished. See the next 2 images - my reference photos...
Chrome Rising 4
I thought the drawing was finished at this point, but the contrast between the hood and the background was bothering me! See the next image for further discussion.
Chrome Rising - Reference Photo 2
To give me a better idea of how to re-work the hood, I took that section of the reference and made it darker. That brought up some details that I could incorporate.
Chrome Rising - Reference Photo 1
Here's the original reference photo. You can see the hood was white, but without a dark background, the contrast situation wasn't distracting.