Thursday, September 30, 2010

POTD: Inking

At this stage of inking, I'm going through and doing all the characters.  I find that you get into a kind of flow and don't want to stop and switch gears to do the backgrounds so I'll pile up a chunk of pages and when my hand gets tired I can take a break and do the bgs.  Later, I'll do the bgs and props with a pen or brush pen (my subtle little trick to distinguish the characters from the bgs) so I can take them to a coffee shop or something and get out of the house.   Doing bgs and objects is kind of boring to me so it helps to be doing something else at the same time.  The characters are where the life and story is, which is another reason I like to do them separately and nicely with a brush and ink.  

Below are my current inking tools.  Windsor Newton India Ink($5) and a #2 Blick Scholastic Wonder White Round($1.50).  Right now I'm inking up Chapter 6&7 with these and did the rest of the book with different brushes and ink - mostly what I could find at stores close to my place and what was the cheapest.  I think the most I ever paid for a brush was $4 but can't really tell the difference.  Once I bought cheap ink(Sumi Drawing Ink) and I could tell the difference, that stuff was watery and turned out kind of gray.  I like the Windsor Newton and will likely stick with it, it does a nice black and goes on smooth. I'm looking forward to comparing pages and trying to see if a difference in materials made any difference in the art.  Though, my hypothesis is: it's not the materials, but how tired or focused I was at the time!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Photo of the Day: Pre Inking

Finally finished the pencils for Book One! It's kind of like wrapping principal photography on a movie though, there's still a bit of work that needs to be done.  But it's a nice milestone to hit.  I still have to ink the final 2 chapters(about 30 pages) and I usually do it in stages, like my own little assembly line, doing parts at a time.  The first stage is inking all the boxes and speech bubbles.  I usually do these with a Micron pen and whip through a bunch before getting out the brush and india ink.  
The next stage will be inking the characters! 

Friday, September 24, 2010

Photo of the Day: The New Studio

I recently just moved and have a new studio set up and the house.  I also just got that drawing table - prior to this month I was using a portable drawing table with the handle and ruler (you can see it there behind the chair).  Anyhoo, I'm always curious to see the workspace of other artists so I figured I would post this.
Also, for those interested in art materials, here's what I used for penciling. the 2ply Bristol paper is 9x12 but I use a letter sized drawing space because I have a small all-in-one type scanner.  The pencil is a drafting pencil with 4H leads which keep the pencils light so I can drop out the gray after it's inked.  On the far left there, I have my script and do the page layout/compositions in the margin.   
As fot the actual paper, I've used 3 different kinds making Book One.  I can't really tell the difference in quality, so I just go for the cheapest one.  The pad I'm currently using only cost $4.  In the words of an old detergent commercial from way back when : "I can't tell a difference, can you tell the difference?...PRICE is the difference!"
When I get to the inking I'll post more materials related stuff then :)

Monday, September 20, 2010

p.39 Quality Assurance is Key

Friday, September 3, 2010

p.37 Think of the Possibilities!

Speaking of possibilities... i always liked this video, you've probably already seen it - but it's worth watching again :)

This one is also offers up some pretty interesting thoughts
"Amity Blamity" (formerly "Pigtails & Potbellies") characters and content is copyright (c) 2008-2011 by Michael White. All rights reserved.