I've been reading up on the use of ink pens lately and can see how they really suit some subjects; those with more contrast than colour perhaps. At the same time I've seen some interesting pictures from other beginners where they've concentrated on something simple like a piece of ribbon or a shoelace. I don't have any ribbon but I thought that my well-worn belt might make an acceptable substitute:
So my first steps were to loosely sketch out in pencil the shape, size and proportion of the various parts of the belt. There's no point, for me at least, in starting out with the pen as I need to work on my lines to get them more or less where I want them. This took a reasonable amount of time but eventually I had the general details in place and could proceed to picking the best lines for my ink pen. Initially this meant wielding a medium-width pen to fill in the edges of the belt before moving onto a fine-width pen for the belt buckle:
A key reason for this change was that I wanted to show how the buckle is made of a wholly different and more reflective material while the belt is consistent but with variations in shadow. For the latter this meant deepening my shading on the left-hand side while reducing it in the areas most exposed to the light. On the whole I think that this has worked out as my picture is definitely a representation of a belt even if it's a little distorted in some places.