Thursday, November 01, 2007

More Playing With Inking techniques

Still playing with inking techniques.

I liked how the second one (the blue one) turned out. I think I could have pushed it a bit farther but I liked the results. I drew it with a non photo blue pencil and then "inked" it with pencils. The only problem was that it was really time consuming to scan it in and prepare it for coloring.
The other drawing (green tentacle guy with flower) was one of the fast methods I've tried out yet. It didn't take long to ink or prepare it in photoshop for coloring. I've been looking at a lot of Bill Watterson (of Calvin and Hobbes) and Sergio Aragones (of Groo)art for inspiration. I really like the loose feel to their work even though their styles are very different. After studying those two I came up with this approach. My drawing style can't be called loose by any stretch of the imagination but I'm hoping to loosen up a bit for speed sake and for the look and feel that approach achieves.
I'm trying to speed up my inking so I can create my comics faster. That's why I've been trying out different inking methods. I've got a longish comic book (50 pages) story thumb nailed out/written and I don't want it to take a year for me to draw it in my free time. I also have been playing with an graphic novel series idea that if I'm ever going to finish I would either have to work at it full time for 7 plus years or get really fast at drawing and inking. Now realistically I probably won't start drawing my graphic novel epic for several years. But the worm of that idea has been burrowing in my brain for more than 4 years now.
I don't believe fast inking and drawing is something to strive for in and of itself. If I can't find an efficient inking style that I like the look of I'll just have to do with a slower style. The art should serve the story not the clock. But even so its good to have a reasonable production schedule.

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