I’ve been taking a course on inking over the last few weeks which is being taught by some comic industry professionals like Pat Davidson, Ty Templeton, J.Bone, and Ramon Perez.
The biggest thing I’ve picked up so far is to use a damn BRUSH!
I used to use markers and nibs for almost all my inking. On the last few pages I’ve inked, (including a soon to be released Fractal Fiction page) I’ve been using brushes a LOT and I’ve been really happy with the results. I’ve gotten over my fear of the brush, and now I can’t believe that I’ve avoided them this long! The Darwyn Cooke page below was 70% inked with a brush, and the Ed McGuinness Hulk was about 40% brush work.
Why was I so scared of brushes all this time? In my best Tony the Tiger voice…”They’re great!”
I’ve posted Ed’s Hulk pencils for comparison, but sorry…I don’t have a Darwyn pencil scan. Darwyn’s blue line page was handed to me and I started on it right away. It looked pretty close to the way I’ve inked it though. ;-)
Looks fantastic GQ (as does you Fractal Friction page). I've recently tried inking with a brush, but like yourself I think I fear it! One thing that concerns me is that I'm often left with a line that isn't true black, and I worry about being able to make them solid in photoshop. Plus I tend to do my inks on the cheapest printer paper available to man, and it often buckles under the ink.
ReplyDeleteGreat lines, man. Can't believe you got such nice pieces out of your first brush experiences!
ReplyDelete(You may not remember but we met a couple times at various cons last summer. I may be at a few this summer in an at-a-table capacity, so I'll probably see you again.)
Never fear the brush. And as for scanning it, if you set your threshold at %50, you'll pick up everything that's gray, really. And what you don't pick up, ah, screw it, can be fixed in a matter of minutes in photoshop.
ReplyDeleteLOVELY inks on that cover, btw...(I've seen it a few times from other students, and you've knocked it out of the park.)
Ty the G