My some-time-near-future goals

[AlexanderVB]

I've been trying to get some ideas off the ground and to a publisher for some time now.

Well, not that long, but longer than it should take considering my issue.

See, I've pretty much got the plots down, the characters, and whatnot, but my MAIN problem is...the inking.

I've tried MANY types of inking and they've pretty much all left me feeling disappointed in the end.

I've tried a brush. I don't like the brushes that much.

I've tried a calligraphy pen and ink. I have to say though, out of the methods I've tried so far, this one's my favorite. It's easy to control, it leaves and nice DARK line that doesn't face in copies, BUT it often gets clogged and it smears to easily. I'd prefer the risks of getting a gigantic blob of ink on my work to be a little less.

I've tried a ballpoint pen. it doesn't look very presentable, especially when being scanned.

I've tried an India Ink pen. This one's okay, but if you leave the pen on the paper for a moment too long, you can notice it. You'll see a small circle in the outline. I usually have the same problem with the ink not being intense enough and looking washed-out in copies.

So, I guess if somebody could tell me another way of inking, that'd be swell.

I have a graphics tablet for my computer too, but using traditional tools feels a bit more comfortable.

I'm usually contend with my work when they're just sketches, but when they're inked they usually look considerably worse.

Thanks.

[Simon Lake]

Yes it's the age old problem for most of us Alex. I love to take a few last glances at my fine pencil work before I kiss it all goodbye in one foul swoop with a single stroke of the pen. It's something we have to live with unfortunately. But then it's also great to see it all bold and colourfull as well, just not exactly as refined as you had intended. I've suffered years of this torture. Hope this helps.....
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[Leah-Admin]

Hi Alex

This is ongoing point of contention for me too! I now possess every black ink pen known to man.

My best bet though is to do the following:

Scan at 300dpi resolution black and white (not colour or greyscale)

Then I go over the lines in 'drawing' program with black for better definition.

Then after shading digitally and messing about with the colours and wot not I may 'sharpen' the image but not so much as it becomes 'out of focus'.

You'll see many of my toons here out of focus etc. but that's because of sharpening them too much and not downsizing the cartoon for web use so it's much larger on web than even in reality whereas it should be the other way around. Anyway, I'm slowly getting the hang of the technical side of things through trial and error.

My fav pens presently are 'sharpie' and an indian ink cartoon roller ball pen which is similar to calligraphy pen but doesn't have the angled nib. It has various size round nibs.
I haven't used it to it's full potential yet.

[Simon Lake]

And to top it all, I enter this cheap ass competition to design a VECTOR logo in illustrator for $10 and AutoTrace is not acceptable?

[Andries]

I think you allready know this tip, but I'm going to post in anyway. :p

Draw about 2x as big as your endresult should be. If you scale the drawing down on your pc, everything will look much better because most 'mistakes' are really small, and therefore invisible when scaled down. (It's what I usually do)

+ you can use thicker lines when drawing. (I find that much easier than thin lines, with a brush.)

[Simon Lake]

Yes a multitude of sins are hidden when scaled down.

[mazzaarti]

Inking out the cartoon can be an aaaggggghhhh...!!! experience, or at least I found this for years. There are a couple of things that I have learnt to do over the years that have taken me fron aaaagggghhhh to wwooww. (much better feeling). Firstly I dont worry about sticking to the original pencil lines to exactly I just use them as a guide.. Depending on the finish I want I either use pen and ink (free and squiggly) or edding fibre tip pens (0.1 - 0.7) more precise and controlable. Also just before I ink out I do a rough sketch in pencil to shade in where the darks and lights are, I look for about a 50% split of dark and light., it also helps me from over working the ink..
I hope this helps in any way.. good doodling

[Leah-Admin]

Hi Mazz

I visited what I believe is your website?

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Great work

[mazzaarti]

Hi Leah
Thanks for the comment glad you liked the artwork (although the site is far from finished and contains only a few paintings and pencil drawings) I haven't put any cartoon work on there as of yet but that is one of my long term goals..
Although most of my art work contains some element of cartooning that seems to have evolved into my signature direction (Guess Im just a cartoonist at heart)

[Simon Lake]

The Einstein is great, good choice of profile pic!