Vader’s Fist – The 501st Legion – Digitally Inked in Adobe Illustrator
A few months ago I decided to draw Vader’s Fist, the 501st Legion. I’m a huge Star Wars fan and wanted to draw something cool. I usually draw comic book characters but I think it was a fun change to draw some sci-fi stuff. The 501st Legion is cool because they are in the prequels, the original trilogy, and the extended universe. They are the highest and most elite Stormtroopers in the Empire. First starting off as the best clone troopers then as Darth Vader’s personal squad. Check out this article at Wookipedia to learn more about them.
This is the final digital inking of my original 11″x17″ drawing. I used my graphic design skills in adobe illustrator to ink the 501. The original drawing was done with an HB woodless pencil. I posted it in an earlier blog post, Vader’s Fist – The 501st Legion – Pencil Drawing. Check it out if you’d like. What’s really cool is if you do a Google image search for “Vader’s Fist” the original pencils show up on page one.
For this digital inking, I decided to use Adobe Illustrator. I’ve done inking in Adobe Photoshop before, but I find that I really like the way my digital inks look in illustrator. In illustrator your inking is in vector, this allows you to enlarge the image with no pixelation. So if I really wanted to I could make a print the size of a building and it would look awesome and sharp.
The tool I like to use in illustrator is the pen tool. I do have a Wacom table, but I feel I have more control with the mouse and pen tool. It lets me create a smooth/jagged line in my piece. I work with anchor points to create curved lines, straight lines, and solid shapes. There was some line work where I did use the brush tool with my Wacom tablet, but most of this digital inking was done with the pen tool.
I’ve very happy with the way this digital inking came out. Ever since I moved to Santa Fe last year, I’ve felt a real recharge in my artwork. The penciling and inking of Vader’s Fist, the 501st Legion is a great example of this. I had a real blast inking it. Shazam!
This blog post was originally published on my other website Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Ralph’s Art Blog.
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