HOW TO DRAW COMICS:
INKING WITH A BRUSH pt 13

Continuing the real-life saga of one man’s struggle against his art materials!

Now that I’ve set the stage, let me talk about how I attack a typical panel.

I start with something simple, especially if I’m not fully warmed up. I find it’s best not to go for faces right away, but if you have to (say, the panel is a big close-up), start with something that doesn’t need long careful lines – like eyebrows or hair.

If I’ve just dipped the brush and it’s full of ink, I actually find it’s best to work on large areas of shadow if there are any. This way I can work some of the ink out of the brush until it comes to a decent point. You can also work out some of the ink on your scrap bristol.

As you work the ink out of the brush, the tip can hold a progressively finer point and you can therefore achieve greater control. So I suggest you always start with broad strokes and big outlines when your brush is full of ink. Once the amount of ink in the brush allows you to achieve a thinner line, begin working on smaller outlines, around smaller figures or faces.

When the brush is no longer full of ink but well before is starts getting dry, I try a couple of longer lines as a test (I do this either in the shadow areas that I will later cover in black or on my scrap of bristol). When I’m satisfied I have good control and enough ink that the brush is not going to go dry on me, this is when I attack larger sections of feathering – long parallel strokes, either straight or in gentle curves, laid down close together without a lot of variation in line width. Basically these create a grey tone to the eye.

If I’m feeling really good, I’ll sometimes go for feathering that employs lines that are slightly thicker in the middle of the stroke yet come to sharp points on either end. These are the strokes that really add life to a form, giving the illusion that a surface is going subtly from light to dark to light again, like any rounded form under most lighting conditions actually does.

Later, just before the brush goes dry, is when I do the really small details – pupils, wrinkles around eyes and noses, and so on. This is also when I do the lightest feathering, say to model the features on the face, around the nose or eyes or checks.

Next Wednesday: More about working a page in: Inking With a Brush, part 14!