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Lesson #1 - Just do it. Be a man. Dive in and ink away. If you screw it up, oh well, it's just a bit of paper, no REAL harm done, just do it again. And the only truly effective way to learn is, unfortunately, to make mistakes. I can't tell you how terrified I used to be of inking my pencils, or even worse, someone else's - now I don't even think twice.
If you're *really* worried about destroying artwork, you can do a couple things to avoid it.
1. Ink on a sheet of vellum, which is semi-transparent and can be laid over your pencils. If you botch the ink job, the pencils are still intact.
2. I don't know how sophisticated your computer setup is there, but what I do is scan my "pencils" and print them out again in very faint blue, just dark enough that I can make out where the lines are, and ink that. Again, if you wreck it, just print off another page and start over. Pencils remain untouched.
3. A slightly lower-tech version of #2 would be to make photocopies of your pencils and set the copier so that it only prints light grey. Not ideal, but it would be useful enough for practice. If there's a photocopy shop or printing house near you, they may also be able to make blue-line copies for you. Print off a bunch and practice practice practice.
Practice is the key - it took me a good few years of solid inking, several pages a day, to really get comfortable with the brush. But, the payoff is great, I don't think anything beats a beautiful brush line.
As for tools - get a GOOD brush. Honestly. It's the most expensive thing you'll buy but a good sable-hair brush makes all the difference. Synthetic bristles just suck. I used to ink with a #1 for veeery fine detail, and a #6 for big thick black areas, but now when I use brushes (which is actually rare, as I now usually ink with brush markers - but, I wouldn't be able to use the markers effectively without first mastering a real brush) I just use the 6. I've developed enough control that I can make razor thin lines or big fat swashes with the same brush.
Get decent india ink. Speedball makes good ink, I find, but it's really personal preference. Trial and error will eventually reveal to you which ink you like the best. Some are thin and watery, others thick. Some artists I know take two different brands and mix them. I used to use FW acrylic-based india ink but I ended up switching to Speedball because I didn't like the glossy shine that the FW had when dry (that's irrelevant for print, black is black, but I also consider the original art, which I want to look good so I can sell it).
Get some white gouache, which is useful for corrections or adding detail over black areas. I actually use white FW acrylic for correx, I don't like their black ink but the white is ok. I've yet to find a perfect white ink though.
There's a couple of books by Gary Martin published by Dark Horse about the art of inking, complete with a wide array of inkers providing advice and tackling the same pencilled pages, which is interesting to see variety in technique. The books aren't perfect but there's some useful info in there for the beginner.
Good luck! |
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