Which one do you like better? Because I'm still not quite sure.
There are things I love about the digital one (left) and things I love about the physical one (right). There are also different things I like about the process in making each work. I enjoy working with lines and pen much more in physical media that I do in digital media. I find it easier to manipulate the density, width, and shape of the lines when my pen and my hand can physically touch the paper and closely work with the line. For me, physical linework just seems like a more direct and natural process that digital linework. I've been drawing on a tablet for years, but the technological void separating my pen and the product it creates is still something I struggle with when trying create tightly rendered and meticulous lines. Lines are very important to me as well as my work, which has become increasingly more graphic in nature. My work is lines.
I feel like the more meticulous linework creating the profile looks better done in pen; however, I find that the more expressive colorful lines look better in the digital version. The most obvious reason for this is that I have yet to figure out how to water down acrylic paint to the viscosity needed to create these thin, smooth, organic lines while retaining its opacity. My tablet pen is pressure sensitive, and Photoshop recognizes how hard I push down on the pen. This makes it easy for me to create lines of various widths and densities while retaining a constant brush size and opacity. This also makes it easier for me to be expressive with my lines because I don't have to worry about continuity or opacity.
Paint is a different story. Having to go back for more paint, having to go over the paint in several layers to achieve a nice opaque line, and having to worry about keeping the brush wet creates interruptions in the lines that kill the continuity and diminish the very expressive quality that I originally intended the lines to carry.
I may end up using tape and an x-acto knife to create stencils. So my lines can be precise, but I can layer the paint as much as I need to. This really worked well when painting the grey background; I taped the face, cut around the lines, and painted the outside of the face gray. The stencil idea worked really well, and I was very please with the cleanness and boldness of the result. I will try to buy some painter's tape and an x-acto knife and try some techniques with them to use in my subsequent pieces.
For my next pieces I intend to continue this same graphic look. I may try some different ideas and perspectives concerning the lines. I think for one of my next pieces, the background or outside of the person will be a color- and the colored lines will spill from the outside to the inside of the person instead of originating from the person and spilling outwards. I think it should look nice aesthetically as well as carry different connotations conceptually.