Inky Dink

Been making good progress on Xrox 3. Drew in some faces yesterday. That was challenging, using only a charcoal pencil. I think the drawing looks really good, but it's missing something. Maybe a dynamic quality, the characters are too stiff, or a quality of the marks, or the value needs to be pushed further. Angela thinks it's the value. I'm pretty sure it's the figures. You know how stiff my spines are. I wish I had a good way of capturing the image. I could try scanning it in parts and putting it together. I've never actually tired that so I don't know how hard it is.
It will be a large shift going from this drawing, which is a splash so it's one drawing to the next page with multiple images on it. I've spent hours on this one drawing. Will I spend as much time on each panel, treating them as individual drawings, or will I work on the page as a whole drawing? Time will tell. I don't expect to have Xrox 3 done by the time Xrox 2 is finished. I'll probably start publishing it as I finish. That would be sporadic but better than having a long dead air time.
I think I've come to an understanding of inking. For the most part comics were ink because of the printing process. The ink showed up and it was fairly cheap and the labor was easy enough. I think that inking has continued to be used because it's easier to create fluid and dynamic line work with ink than with charcoal or pencil (though it can be done, ink is just easier). And of course, ink does show up better. The blacks on the page will be as black as black if you use ink.
I'm still also dancing with expectation. I still think the blacks on the page should look like a classic comic, that this line should be defined by a heavy black rather than a soft fuzzy charcoal mark. Thus, it's difficult to treat the art for what it is, if you follow me.
I'd still like to try collage on the page but I'm not sure how to work that. Most of the elements of collage are cultural detritus. I have plenty of old postage stamps and discarded letters but not much by way of griffin feathers and ugl parchment.