Inking the Jeff Way: Part 2 — Tools of the Trade

By the end of this read my hope is that you know what tools are need­ed in order do some ink­ing. Since this series is real­ly intend­ed for ink­ing new­bies I will break Ink­ing tools into the fol­low­ing Categories:

1.  Bare Bones: the most basic of basic items need­ed to get a taste for ink­ing. Low mon­ey investment.
2. Com­mit­ted: items that you will find nice to own once you have cut your teeth a bit, and you are sure you want to keep going. Mod­er­ate mon­ey investment.
3. Deep Pock­ets: things that you will need to set up an ink­ing haven to make me jeal­ous. Large mon­ey investment

Let’s get this over with huh?

Bare Bones:

For those who want to give ink­ing a shot, but not sure if they will get out of it a mean­ing­ful experience.

• Trac­ing Paper/Vellum
  • Be sure that it is approved for use with ink and feels sturdy
• 102 Crow Quill Nibs and Hold­er
  • Buy the nibs in bulk. Trust me.
• Black India Ink 
  • Dr. Ph. Martins
  • Black Cat
  • Black Mag­ic
• Art Tape
• Black Cop­ic Markers
• Basic Ruler

From here you just need to print off some pen­cils you want to try your luck at on a stan­dard 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper. Tape a Sheet of Vel­lum on top with some art tape, and start Ink­ing. Use your Crow Quill for your con­tour line work, details and hatch­ing. The Cop­ic Mark­ers will help ya bust out large black areas. I will focus future tuto­ri­als on basic ink­ing tech­niques lat­er on, but not now…wah wah.

Com­mit­ted:

Some who know FOR SURE they want to ink could prob­a­bly skip to this phase, but as for me I actu­al­ly built up to this lev­el of investment.

• The fol­low­ing items from the Bare Bones Section 
  • 102 Nib/Holder, Black India Ink, Art Tape, Black Cop­ic Markers
• Swap Vel­lum for some 11x17 Bris­tol Boards
  • I use the 500 series, but to each their own honestly
• Set of Black Micron Pens
• Black Ink Brush Pen or Tra­di­tion­al Sable Size 2 Brush
  • To be hon­est I use brush pen and swear by it as it’s less cost­ly to replace
• Thumb Dri­ve of at least a few GB in Size
• Pho­to Shop
• Draw­ing Board or Art Desk
• Work Space Light
• French Curves
• Water Proof White Ink or White Paint

If you got all of this stuff you are set up to ink full size com­ic pages in a man­ner befit­ting a pro. First con­vert some 11x17 page of pen­cils to blue line, and take them to a copy shop to have them print­ed on your Bris­tol Board. I used to try and do this myself in the self ser­vice por­tions of the copy shop to save the embar­rass­ment of ask­ing the clerk to print me comics to trace, but trust me…they can get them print­ed faster than you can. A lot faster. Plus it usu­al­ly strikes up a fun con­ver­sa­tion on what you are doing.

Now, get to work ink­ing using a com­bi­na­tion of Brush, Pen and Nib. Again…sorry, not gonna tell ya how I do that today. When you are done, maybe take them back to the copy shop and have them scanned and put on your thumb dri­ve for shar­ing on the internet.

Deep Pock­ets:

All the things you will need to ink start to fin­ish IN HOUSE!

• All Items from Com­mit­ted Section
• Large For­mat Scanner
• Large For­mat Printer
• Pho­to­shop Plus Illustrator
• If you didn’t get a desk ear­li­er then get one….I bad ass one. 
  • You won’t regret going all out on an art desk.
  • Add to your Micron Pens some Koh-I-Noor Pens

From here you can cut out the copy clerk mid­dle man and scan pen­cils or fin­ished inks your­self! Also, with illus­tra­tor you can get into the grit­ty of work­ing with your scans to pret­ty them up. Koh-I-Noor pens are total­ly friv­o­lous, but fun addi­tions to your ink­ing arsenal.

Well that is it! If you buy­ing much out­side of these things I would love to know what they are (jeff@albatrosscomics.com)

Thanks for Reading.