How do I ink?

[Eggie]

Gah!
Everytime I try to ink a picture I've done; the outlines come out all horrible and wobbly like this!

But I want nice, clean outlines like this or this or this

I know these things take practice but I don't even know where to start. Please, please help me...I'm fed up of ruining my best lineart with shoddy inking.

If I try doing it quickly with fast, flowing strokes I miss the lines completely and everything becomes horribly mis-shapen.
But when I try carefully going over the pencil slowly the lines come out shaky with big blobs of ink where there should be smooth lines.

So...Please...Share your knowledge, great ones. Let me know the secret of this dark art. I will give you cookies! CYBER cookies!!

[MrColossal]

Well, what are you inking with?

On the computer or with pen and ink?

I've never been able to get the hang of inking on the computer when the resolution is huger than huge.

If it's a small image I can do it lickity split.

In real life with pen and ink it's much easier but you don't get control z so it can be more frustrating. It's just practice practice practice really.

I've tried inking in flash and it always comes out shaky to so I stopped, or I optimize the line and then tweak it but that is just too many steps that are necessary.

I've seen tutorials where people ink in illustrator drawing lines and then tweaking their bezier points to get the line variations and it just seems so pointless to me. You'll spend 10 minutes tweaking a line on the side of the arm when it would take 2 seconds with a pen and ink or a brush and ink... People be crazy!

You are using flash right? or some sort of vector program.

[Eggie]

A Pilot drawing pen.

[MrColossal]

I suggest

http://hans.presto.tripod.com/nibs/est_card_580.jpg

something like that, they're pretty cheap and they work really well. That is if you want to get a look that's all nice and varied like this

http://www.sylpher.com/kafka/images/art/sketches/images/scientist.jpg

or you can try a brush but they are more expensive and die faster.

Ink I use is Winsor Newton black, it has shellac in it that makes it waterproof and durable but it also makes it uber permanent. If you use a brush the shellac is what destroys the bristles little by little but you're all good if you use a metal nib.

Also, don't ink your originals if you don't want to ruin them, trace them onto another sheet of paper with a light box or put them up against a window in the day time and do a quick tracing and then ink the trace.

[Eggie]

Thanks. That scientist is exactly the sort of thing I'd love to be able to do.

[mätzyboy]

I can really understand the urge of having clean lines, but I think your inking is nice aswell! Sometimes wobbly lines gives more craziness, which is what I associate your art with. Still iguess it's good to master both?

By the way, I must say I like what's become of your style. Back in idon'tknowwhen I remember you drawing stuff in MSPaint, if I'm not mistaken, and I had a hard time understanding the quality of it then. The form it has taken now however, is great. You really have mastered the expressions of cartoon characters. Keep it up!

Cheers/ Mätzyboy

[SpacePirateCaine]

Part 1:

When doing inking on paper, it's not a necessity, but a good pen and nibs can really make a huge difference. and if you want the more varied width lines, like you would see in a comic book, a crow quill or spoon tip nib would be your best bet (at least, those are the types that I use in my art).

Like MrColossal's, here is a link to some pens that you can order online if your local art shop doesn't carry them. The speedball pens are quite decent.

Another important thing to keep in mind is what kind of paper you're inking on. Different papers absorb the ink in different ways - your average sheet out of a ream of recycled printer paper has a tendancy to absorb thinner inks and allows it to spread, making spiky edges. I'd suggest buying some paper made for pens which is listed as 'bleedproof'. Either a bleedproof  paper, like this one, which is what I usually use, or a nice drafting vellum, like this. You'll also want a nice, thick ink, like Higgins Black Magic or my personal favorite, Speedball Super-black India ink. They go on smooth, and tend not to spread very much. Just remember to dip often, and be sure never to touch wet ink. I've ruined many a piece in that manner.

As far as technique is concerned, inking is less of a fine science as it is a physical skill, you wnt to keep your pen strokes quick and controlled, because the slower you move, the more wobbly your hand will be. I'd suggest doing some really quick doodles and practicing with your pens until you can follow a line quickly and efficiently. This tutorial gives some decent basic tech tips.

Here are some examples of the kind of inking work I do.

Part 2:

Working with Flash can be an entirely different entity altogether, it's a similar concept, of course, but isn't nearly as easy to control, perhaps, as the ol' hand with pen in technique. If you have a tablet, it's much easier, as it works as your pen for you, but even then it's much tougher to get something just right when you aren't looking at your hand across the image itself. Prodigious use of the 'smooth' option in flash to make lines smoother and vertices pointer tends to help quite a bit, and remember - Ctrl+Z is your friend.

[AgentLoaf]

I've a soft spot for vectors and use Adobe Illustrator for inking. It's cleaner than standard inking, plus if you screw up you can just go back and change a few points until the line is just right.

Mr. Colossal was right about it taking a while though, but after a while you get the hang of it and it becomes pretty fluid. Also, the final product is nice, crisp and unsmudged, which is always a plus.

[Eggie]

Wow. Thanks for all your responses. I think this avice is really going to help.

[Albert Cuandero]

I am inking with Pilot too, but only for drafts, after scanning -300 dpi- (since I color most things on the computer anyway) I just adjust the line with / make correction via eraser.
Here's what I get then (more or less)



in the lower right part the small picture is the actual game size...