Final Major Illustration Piece Progress

To begin this piece I have created a sketch using pencil followed by a layer of fine liner. I have chosen to use a subtle fine liner outline as opposed to the previous experiments as I felt that thick bold lines would draw the viewer's eye away from the smaller bones of the ribcage and merge together to form large areas of tone which I did not want at this stage. I debated between incorporating  a 3/4 view of a ribcage at first but I then decided upon a front facing view as the spine sculpture would be presented from the front also and I feel that this would create a more interesting piece for the viewer. 

I did find the front view form to be quite difficult as the ribcages I had studied from life were almost always symmetrical so I had to keep measuring the sizes of the ribs to ensure that the piece would be symmetrical. I feel that the piece is somewhat successful at this stage as there is still small adjustments that need to added/changed to aid in the form of the ribcage. I also chose to use a larger scale paper as I felt that A4 size would be too small an that the spine sculpture may redirect the viewer's eye away from the focal point of the illustration piece, so instead I have chosen to use an A3 size.

Here is another progress shot of the final major ribcage illustration, I have started applying ink marks to the piece using cross-hatching alongside the dry brush technique to create a sense of texture similar to that of the bones which I have studied from life. I am now sure that I do not want to apply a wash of watercolour tone as I quite like the contrast between the black tones of the ink alongside the white tones of the paper which would also contrast the brown tones of the spine sculpture and draw the viewer's eye down the spine towards the illustration. I feel that this piece is successful so far as the ink creates a sense of depth and dimension within the piece as well as creating a sense of texture to suggest a rougher surface.