Snippet Day

 I meant to post this earlier but life has been tumultuous the past week and a half. I still have yet to finish this Inktober piece or sum up my thoughts on my month, but I did apply an ink wash after much hemming and hawing over whether or not I should do it. I decided that I have no experience in this and never will have if I don't take risks. So after trying to get a good photo for future reference's sake should I totally ruin the sketch with a wash, I went ahead and laid down some ink.

The wash totally changed the look of the piece and created new challenges and needs in terms of shading and darkening the values elsewhere in the piece. That is what I will be working on little by little.  

Execution aside, do you prefer it with or without the dark background?