Inking tools - let's brush up...

[Peter Wolf]

I would rather fiddle around with brushes and ink than software any day as i just want to keep things simple.I can see advantages and pluses but i have enough to try and concentrate on just with brushes and having to learn to use software as well is too much to take on.I like being a Luddite.

Also i wouldnt get the effect i want with software and tablets either.

And its cheaper.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

Manga Debut 4 is widely available and only costs about 30 pounds. Add up all those  Sable brushes of various sizes, inks [I think David Lloyd recommended Pelican ink]plus Bristol board to draw on and frankly thirty quid ain't too bad.

Saves a lot of space too.

[SuperSurfer]

And saves sables. The poor little critters.

[Jim_Campbell]

Manga Debut 4 is widely available and only costs about 30 pounds. Add up all those  Sable brushes of various sizes, inks [I think David Lloyd recommended Pelican ink]plus Bristol board to draw on and frankly thirty quid ain't too bad.

Saves a lot of space too.

I'd add that I've drawn more in the year since I made a concerted effort to go entirely digital than at pretty much any time in the last fifteen or twenty years. There's an odd, uncomfortable period while you try to replicate your traditional work process faithfully in digital media, and you become acutely aware of the differences between the two methods. If you persevere, there eventually comes an "AHA!" moment, where your brain lets go of -- for example -- the rigid roughs -> pencils -> inks workflow and you realize that, because you can erase your inks, the division between the pencils and inks doesn't exist any more ...

Cheers!

Jim

[dyl]

Think you're right there Jim, there's definitely an awkward sort of distanced feel to inking digitally when you start. I still find it a bit frustrating I can't get it quite as precise as my inking by hand and I can't get it as loose as my sketches. I'm hoping though that with more practice I'll get more comfortable with it and be more pleased with the results. Quite happy with how the sketch on my blog came out but there're still some bits that are not quite working for me.

[Peter Wolf]

Manga Debut 4 is widely available and only costs about 30 pounds. Add up all those  Sable brushes of various sizes, inks [I think David Lloyd recommended Pelican ink]plus Bristol board to draw on and frankly thirty quid ain't too bad.

Saves a lot of space too.

Luckily i only need the very small sizes 00000 to 0 so they are not expensive @ roughly 3 to 4 quid each.The board i use is very cheap for a large sheet approx 36" by 18" @ 2.20 a sheet.I bought the very large size bottle of ink which is also economical @25 quid
[/quote].

Not trying to contradict you here but just giving you the actual costs.

And saves sables. The poor little critters.

Thats a much bigger concern of mine than quibbling over a few quid.I havent looked into it yet but if cruelty/exploitation is involved then its a problem.

Manga Debut 4 is widely available and only costs about 30 pounds. Add up all those  Sable brushes of various sizes, inks [I think David Lloyd recommended Pelican ink]plus Bristol board to draw on and frankly thirty quid ain't too bad.

Saves a lot of space too.

If you persevere, there eventually comes an "AHA!" moment, where your brain lets go of -- for example -- the rigid roughs -> pencils -> inks workflow and you realize that, because you can erase your inks, the division between the pencils and inks doesn't exist any more ...

Cheers!

Jim

I hadnt thought about that aspect.Your ink and brush become your pencil in a sense.

[Paul_Ridgon]

As Jim said, the definitions kind of get blurred when you work digitally.  Using traditional methods, I always worked extremely tightly right from the off, producing pencils that I only really needed to ink because of smudges and the fact the board was pretty mucky.  Now, like a number of other pros who work digitally, I can rough everything out more loosely than I ever did traditionally and what would have originally been my pencils are now my inks.

As has been said, it does take some getting used to, and I'm a lot slower than I'd like to be, but I know that once everything clicks into place, my workflow speed will increase exponentially.

As has been said before, once you get the initial outlay covered, there's very little expense.  No more importing blue line bristol from the States, buying pens and leads, not to mention the space that is saved.

When Brian Bolland recommended going digital to me, I wasn't convinced, but once I gave it a serious try, I'd never go back.

Sorry, we've gone a little off topic here...

[pauljholden]

The thing with digital inking is that it can often look very synthetic, especially when you see it on the printed page - inking by hand on the whole looks a lot warmer and more natural.

I've got the basic version of Manga Studio, so one day I'll give it a go and see if it works for me.

The MS inks I've done look almost identical to some of my brush work - my problem with it is almost the opposite - I want to do clean line inking in it, but I only ever get organic looking inks.

-pj

[Jim_Campbell]

I hadnt thought about that aspect.Your ink and brush become your pencil in a sense.

Very much so. Plus, there's the fact that your pen hand never releases the stylus. so your other hand changes the settings and the pen in your hand becomes a pencil, a brush, a fine pen, a marker pen, dip pen, an eraser with only the briefest pause between strokes.

Don't misunderstand me -- I miss the act of laying ink onto a sheet of A3 Bristol Board, I miss the tactile aspect, I miss actually making a physical thing. For all I like my digital inks, there's an effect you get from a particular change of direction mid-stroke using a Gillott 303 flexible nib, a thick-thin stroke change and a slight drag as the point of the nib breaks the surface of the paper...

But, realistically, drawing that way requires a level of commitment that I simply don't have time for at present: I can put in 15-30 minutes inking digitally between lettering pages where 15 minutes doing it traditionally would barely give me time to fix the paper to the drawing board clean my nibs (fnarr).

Cheers!

Jim

[Jim_Campbell]

The MS inks I've done look almost identical to some of my brush work - my problem with it is almost the opposite - I want to do clean line inking in it, but I only ever get organic looking inks.

I'll admit that I haven't got round to investigating the vector capabilities of MS, but I reckon, based on some limited experimentation in Illustrator, that you might want to spend some time with the vector layers ...?

Cheers

Jim

[radiator]

Hmmm.

Recently splashed out on some nice dip pens, nibs, ink and brushes. But when I tried some inking yesterday the line I drew with the dip pen immediately bled and frayed everywhere as soon as the nib touched the surface of the board.

I'm using Hunt and Gillott nibs with Higgins ink on Windsor & Newton Bristol Board, which is what I thought all the pros used...?

Out of frustration I switched to using cartridge paper and although I didn't get as much bleeding or fraying of the line, it was far from ideal and I ended up using a brush and markers to do everything.

What's the deal? What card/board should I be using?

On the flipside, brush inking isn't quite as much of a nightmare as I remember it being, so I'll be doing more of that in future. I think my problems with using a brush before was that I using too thick a brush tip - I definitely remember reading a tutorial that specifically stated not to use a thin brush, so that's what I did and it caused me a few headaches.

[dyl]

Paper is a bit of a problem nowadays just seems to be getting crapper and crapper I'm afraid.

Winsor and Newton used to be great (like their brushes) it's horrible stuff now. I get Strathmore 400 Bristol Board now, problem is you have to order it from the States and it works out about a little over a pound a sheet.
Daler Heavyweight paper is ok, though I don't like pencilling on it as it doesn't take erasing too well. I only use it for blueline inking.

[Cthulouis]

Okay,this might be a really dumb question, but what sort of ink do people use?

I ask as I happen to have a small pot of ink which claims to be "Non waterproof ink - suitable for fountain pens and dip pens."

To me, this sounds pretty appropriate, but the fact that the pot feels the need to specify this makes me think there must be other options out there. So when I go into an art shop, what should I be asking for?

Or am I just over-thinking this? Is ink just ink?

[dyl]

You're best off using waterproof ink. It won't smear after it's dry and you'll be able to use white paint to do corrections over it.

My favourites are Pelikan and FW acrylic.
Winsor and Newton is used by a lot of people, again make sure to get the permanent waterproof one. I find it a lttle bit too thick. The benefit of this is that it'll stay black even when you rub out the pencils underneath. The inks I use are a little bit thinner and can go grey when you rub out the pencils.

[Cthulouis]

Cheers.

I like the sound of this whole 'staying black' thing. I've been using marker pens recently and they do have a tendency to come out a little grey. (the fact that I have to rely on work's unsuited photocopier to make the things small enough to fit in my scanner doesn't help the finished product either).

Looks like I'm off to visit York's resident grumpy art supply seller.