Styracosaurus in progress

(click to enlarge)
This one has been a bit slow going...but I've had to take breaks and come back to it several times and make corrections. It is also the biggest item I've worked on...I think the full sheet is 20" by 30"...anyway it takes up most of my drawing table. I've got all the general areas figured out I just have to fill it in...the plan is a full body shot half-way submerged in water with tick birds getting a free ride...the really tough part will be doing the reflections and background...and then going back in and adjusting the values...the one mistake I made...I tried out using carbon pencils for some of the blacks...which worked well...but I only switched to it after I found out that the ebony pencils were still not getting the darks I wanted (partially because of the reflection factor). And of course the carbon doesn't really want to stick into the graphite areas where I had already lade down the blacks because there is no tooth left...

So while I read all of the good points to carbon pencils (the molecules are more uneven so when you lay a patch down they don't reflect light as graphite does....graphite particles are more even and lay down 'smoother' which acts in a way as a mirror...) So while I love the rich blacks I know I have to be careful with using it...and in the future plan better so I know where to use the carbon pencil and where to hit the graphite...