Two to five hours.

What do we have?

We have a stack of blue printouts of the sketch serving as a background for the inks, and we have the goods.



These are the materials I need for inking. Below are the blue backgrounds.

What I always do first is to line the panels. The gutters, which are the spaces between the panels, are approxmately two millimeters wide and supposed to be constant. I can't be arsed to measure millimeters, so this aspect I commit on pure feeling.

There are some useful rules for getting panels and gutters absolutely straight, though.





To err is human, and when this happens there's no shame in using white-out. It won't show in the scan and you can only barely see it on the originals.



When done with the boring lining comes the far more exciting bit: Inking. Before I go there, however, I might want to look over the prints and fix up a couple things which aren't good.

Violet's expression in the example below, for example, didn't fit. So I just fix it with a mechanical pencil to make sure I won't forget it when I come back inking.

Why hassle around with a paintbrush/ink (or brush pen)?
1. The lines shift weight along their course.
This is all the reason I need.

As far as I know, there are two types of ink: Calligraphy ink, which is waterproof, and and drawing ink, which is water soluble.

You can use whichever ink you like better, this I know from experience. I even mix these types (seeing as the only drawing ink I get where I live sucks hairy beans).



This is my procedure for paintbrush inkage:
1. All foreground elements are inked with a brush.
2. Middleground elements are inked with a brush if they are people.
3. Background elements are never inked with a brush.

For details so small I can't paint them properly with a brush, I ink them with a pen under the pretense they were brush-inked.

Whenever I feel I can, I fill in areas with black to make shadows and silhouettes. In my opinion silhouettes are fail-safe.

Also I try (and regularly fail) to keep in mind what potential for art I have using this method of inking. If you've read Bone by Jeff Smith, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

I draw details (and fine lines in transparent objects, reflections and such) with a fine pen.

In my case this makes things look more professional, because I'm not able to add these details with a brush, and it provides variety to the picture.

I use Sakura Pigma Micron 0.1 pens for reflection lines and other very fine detail.



I use Sakura Pigma Micron 0.5 pens for backgrounds, and less fine detail (like dr Evil's glasses, Shaka's cigarette).



And the inking is done!



The first thing yours truly did after shooting this picture, was to decidedly tip over the teaspoon you see above. Yes, the one with ink in it. Almost an entire panel was completely soiled. That's when the white-out comes in handy.

Now I go back to my computer to scan and finish everything in Photoshop.


Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V

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