Whenever I get around to it this will be a giant page on all the contraptions I use to do what I do. Whatever that may be.

Pencilling

This is the occupation everybody wants to get into...

Paper selection
www.eonprod.com - They've got comic sized art boards with blue line page guides specially designed for inking. I gotta check these guys out. I currently use an acid free Seth & Cole because my local art store stopped carrying Strathmore bond.

Lead

More later

Inking

This is a rehash from an email I sent a friend a while back, it'll go through some editing in the future but it's posted here so there'll be something interesting to read while I write some other stuff.

As for the brushes I use, I use any number of everything really. If you're just wanting to know about brushes; I use a fancy pants "industry standard," break the bank, Windsor Newton Series 7 Finest Sable. I have a couple Windsor Newton Galeria Round S series #3 and #1's. I also use, more often than those a cheap-o (hah, five bucks cheap-o) Ruby Satin Silver #1, round, Stock #2500S, I like it because unlike the cheaper W&N #1 it's got some tip length to it. Good luck finding the latter. Any Round Sable hair in sizes #1, #2 or #3 shouldn't do you wrong, but Windsor Newton is the one pros seem to swear by, with good reasons. Windsor Newtons are expensive but they *really* are THE best, don't settle for less unless you find something strange that works for you. Keep that tip clean and in shape kids, your brushes are an investment, with proper care they'll last you til the end of your illustrious career.

Other items in my arsenal of inking gadgets include: Speedball C-6 nibs, Hunt#102 (another industry standard), a varaity of tech pen sizes and Q-tips for doing huge expanses of black. Toothbrushes and razor blades are fun for doing special effects, though I never use blades and only rarely use toothbrushes and I tend to draw a little cleaner than the styles it works well in. It's also good to have multiples of certain things, a few million Hunt #102's, I loose them a lot and they wear out quickly, and an X-acto blade for scraping dried ink off the nib when you loose it under a pile of artwork.

A ruler with a raised edge for inking is essential, for panel borders, for drawing tech, if you can't draw a straight line you need this. Rapid-O-Graph pens are especially useful when straight uniform lines come into play. Buy a few.

Don't skimp on paper, it'll show when the nib tears it to shreds and the ink bleeds all over.

As for ink, whatever ink you use just make sure it's black, waterproof and light resistant. I use FW Artists Acrylic, it's about as black as black can get without sucking you into an intense gravity field & was recommended by a guy who's been doing this inking stuff for a long time. I like the original artwork to look as black as the printed page will look, for years I was discouraged that I couldn't get this with the inks I was using.

Also, when inking, have a couple things going so when one has a huge puddle of ink drying you can set it aside and work on something else for a while. Have lots of places to put stuff too. When I've finally got my studio set up for good I'm going to build some shelves to put off to the side and one of those floating item trays to bolt on the wall above my desk.

In inking one often makes a mistake, to say you never make mistakes would be to lie straight out, lying is bad kids. With time and practice you tend to make less mistakes but you'll always have some problem appear somewhere, someday. Fixing these errors is easier than it would seem. White-out, though messy and smelly works wonders and you can ink over it easily. I have a "Liquid Paper" correction pen that just works wonders when I mess up. Saves my ass. It has a metal roller-ball and works just like a ball point pen to give a clean, uniform line. Another little white opaque pen is something I recently discovered and just adore. It's called a Milky Gel Roller and it's made by Pentel. It's as fine point as your average ball point pen and writes over just about everything with one or two passes. Incredible. So fine you can actually letter with it. Some artists use Pro-White to correct errors and it seems to work okay, although it's kind of gummy.

Tracing Vellum is an expensive luxury, but worth every penny. It allows you to go over the pencils without actually putting ink to the originals. I know Geof Darrow does it this way and I do it only because I'm too scared to ruin perfectly good pencils with ink. When I'm more accustomed to inking I'll probably start inking on the paper.

That's my speal on inks, it took me a year and then some and lots of trial and error to gain that little smeg of knowledge, use it well my friend. But this is mostly a tool list and the tools on it are just what I've grown accustom to liking, your preferances may be different but at least that's a starting point. Try all kinds of different things and find what you enjoy, most of all, have fun.

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