Practice makes... better

Lately I've been really working hard to get my inking and coloring to a higher or at least to a different level. To broaden the scope and become more of an all rounder. I have been inking sketches that I found on the web, by among others, Jack Kirby. Just to have something to ink. But I figures since I'm never going to be part of a comic book producing machine like the people who used to ink his work and I will always be inking my own work, it was an utterly pointless (though interesting) exercise. In order to develope my own style of inking I needed to ink my own pencils. So I did.
I took a sketch I posted in my last blog entry, but here it is again....


So I inked it. I did a light blue print out of it and inked on top of that.
I wasn't too unhappy with the result, although I think I overdid the details slightly. I'm trying to find a better balance between rough and undetailed parts and detailed more rendered part of the drawing. But I always get sort of caught up in the fun of putting ink to paper with a brush, which result in the whole thing being too detailed and loses all tension within it... Does that makes sense? It needs a contrast between rendered and less-rendered bits, so that certain parts jump out more and get more emphasis. That's important...
Anyway te ink:


So as I said, the inks had room for improvement, but it was a nice little exercise. So I thought what the hell, let's follow through with some more photoshop practice. I love the way photoshop let's you make the illustration look sexy...


I'm thinking of maybe adding some type, but I don't know what yet.

If there are any inkers/draftsmen/colorererers out there that have any points for me, please let me know. I've been a professional illustrator and designer for about 10 years now, but I still have plenty to learn and not afraid to do so. So if you have any thoughts on this stuff, it'd be cool to hear from you....