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gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Sun Aug 24, 2003 5:51 am

inking:

are your comfortable inking? If so, how did you reach that stage?

here's my story:
I used to be deathly afraid of inking until about a year or so ago. But I learned how to ink with a brush and ever since then I have been enjoying inking more and more. Now I come up with lines with a brush that I never would have been able to do with a pencil. After finishing pencils, I used to think my drawing was half done. Now I feel like it is not even 30% done. Sure, in terms of time penciling takes way longer than inking, but in terms of the overall feel my inking has a much greater role than the pencils. So much so that now when I sketch on the side I mostly sketch in ink pens. In fact, I like pens & brushes more than pencils now, which is totally the opposite of my artistic life up until a year or so ago.

What is the story for everyone else out there? I know that there are a lot of people who do digital inking nowadays.... Any stories about coming to like/love inking? Or even about becoming comfortable with it (digital inking included, of course)?

Also, it seems that inking a pencil drawing was a necessity for comics in terms of the technology. Now that is no longer a necessity. Brenner Printing, a standard comic print shop, says that you can give them your comic pages in ANY medium, including pencils. So there is no real reason beyond fan expectation (built on tradition) for keeping black ink in comics. And especially for indie comics, there is no real reason to stick to inking at all....

But I just love it too much to give it up. What do other people out there think? I notice that Scott McCloud has a definite ink element to his work, even though he now creates entirely digitally and the contour lines are not always black....

losttoy · Post by **losttoy** » Tue Aug 26, 2003 3:08 am

I started inking as an art in high school art class. Then it was with bambo pens. This kind of inking as well as all my other art back then, was not at all comic book style. In college, I got some pen nibs and I started inking other peoples pencils. I did all sorts of techniques, which my influences being Frank Miller, Jae Lee and Art Adams. The problem is I had little experience and paitence. You see, I am a bit of a perfectionist and will tear my hair out when I spill ink or when I draw a shaky line. I all but gave up on comic art for several years. When I started drawing Losttoy comics for the web, I mostly did stuff on the computer, but occationally used a sharpy.

Currently, I only draw really rough pencils to determine what I want on the page, scan them in the computer to Photoshop, where I use them as a template to draw over using seperate layers, layout text and draw in paths the panels boxes, and then draw everything using the pen tool in paths where I can change and edit each point and line to perfection. I stroke the paths twice, once at 5 pixels and once again at 8 pixels with the "simulate pressure" option. This gives a real hand inked look to the linework while maintaning the quality and consistancy that I have trouble actually doing by hand. I can later reuse, resize, and re-edit the same paths for other panels, pages, or comics to give a consitant look to my art.

This works for me ... however, my wife got me a ink set for christmas and I have been playing with them again. It is more illustrative stuff, but still fun.

ragtag · Post by **ragtag** » Tue Aug 26, 2003 4:57 am

Nope....can't say I'm comfortable inking yet, but I try my best. I've been using a brush and indian ink, which is nice to work with, but I still find it a little hard to control. I guess I just have to practice more. I've also been working a lot of on rather rought watercolor paper, which gives a nice texture when dry brushing, but tends to make for more vobbly lines.

Interesting what you say about printing. This would mean you could use things like ink washes, pen with pencil shading and lots of other nice techniques and it would still print okay. I'll have to look into that.

Ragnar

gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Tue Aug 26, 2003 5:31 am

yeah, today's comic industry seems to be ruled by ink not by technical reasons anymore, so you can really do anything you want. Even oil painting. Of course if you want to do color, you have to pay extra!

Soooooo....... anyone out there feel like chalanging the concept of ink as being necessary to comics? Any one have any theories about whether or not inking is necessary, beyond the forces of printing technology?

interesting what different people have to say about their experiences with inking.

I gave some more thought to how I got to the point to where I'm not afraid of inking anymore, and it boils down to 3 reasons:

1) my ink drawings are better than my pencil drawings
2) i love inking
3) i have learned to be satisfied that i can't always ink a line the way i wanted to ink it

# 1 and 2 are definitely important, but without number 3 i'd probably still be afraid....

stan lee says this about inking in "how to draw comics the marvel way":

"Inking can be tiresome, and it requires relentless concentration."

macclint · Post by **macclint** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 5:14 pm

I've been feeling quite a bit better about inking since I found the FABER CASTELL Pitt artist Pen. (with the B on the cap and barrel, the thickest one). Archival, waterproof, highly lightfast!

It inks like a very nice brush!! I don't know how long it'll last, but here's something I just inked with it...
(keeping in mind I'm not the world's best inker)
(and the black in the background was done with a different implement)

http://www.wanderingones.com/images/InkedSam.gif

gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 9:04 pm

wow, that does look like a brush!

macclint · Post by **macclint** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 12:18 pm

It's lasted pretty well too. I've inked a couple of pages and at least 20 panels of my webcomic and it's just starting to get low on ink.