I've reworked my vision of the Monkey King. I'm steering heavily away from any digital work right now, aside from color studies and Rogue Robot, and get back to my artistic roots, so to speak. I've been doing really clean, tight sketches with a set of graphite pencils. I was inspired to get back to pencil after reading a graphic novel called The Arrival by Shaun Tan which was absolutely amazing, completely pencil-drawn, and wordless (no dialog, no narration, just pictures).
So here I have Monkey King flying on his magic cloud, defending the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. There isn't much written detail about his coat of armor in the original story, aside from a mail coat from the Dragon King, and a tiger skin for a kilt. The turtle shells on his shoulders, knotted vine clasps, and carved peach belt buckle are my artistic additions, based on what materials would be available to him on the island. His crown is part of the original story, as well as the gold-banded cudgel (staff). I've been really interested in the repetition of patterns lately, which I like contrasting with organic shapes.
Basically what I'm getting at is that I'm starting the Monkey King story over, in a hand-drawn medium. No more digital work for now, aside from the comic. I'll still be posting the new pages on my blog.
This Monkey King is friggin awesome.
