HOW TO DRAW COMICS:
INKING WITH A BRUSH pt 14

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

Last week I began discussing how I attack a typical panel, from first dipping the brush in ink until the brush becomes too dry for normal inking. You’ll recognize this when the ink coming off the brush no longer makes a solid line but gives a broken or grey line instead. Usually you’ll simply want to dip the brush back into the ink and start the whole process over that I described last week.

However, this is also the perfect time to employ something called dry brush technique. As the brush dries, the hairs at the tip start to separate and act as a kind of fan on the paper, laying down wispy strokes in light greyish tones.

I sometimes use this technique to work into hair, to soften forms or edges, or where I think the contrast from light to dark is too abrupt. There are other means to achieve these ends but dry brush has a unique softness you can’t achieve any other way.

As you work the brush further using dry brush technique, eventually the brush gets so dry you can’t control the mark you’re making – either you have to apply the brush several times just to make a mark of any kind, or the brush gets clumpy and the mark goes from being too light to abruptly too dark. Further dry brush work at this point is mostly useless, so it’s time to dip the brush in ink again.

The drawback of letting the brush go this dry is that you need to wash the brush out more often, since you’ll get dry flakes of carbon in the bristles that will eventually clog the brush and prevent the ink from flowing smoothly onto the paper, making the rest of your inking that day more difficult.

If left to dry without cleaning, the carbon build-up at the base of the brush will eventually prevent the brush from forming a good point, thereby ruining the brush. However, some artists say they prefer a little build-up at the base and that it actually helps hold the point longer over the brush’s life by cementing the hairs together at the ferrule. I personally haven’t tried this, but as with many things involved in the art of brush inking, you’ll eventually form your own preferences as you try different techniques.

Currently, my preference is to wash my brush after each 15 minute period of inking (I’ll talk in the future about how to wash your brush without ruining it).

All told, with the #2 Winsor and Newton brush I normally use (I also use a #3, but I’ve been using the #2 the most of late), the time it takes from dipping the brush in ink till the end of useful dry brush work is somewhere in the 5 to 7 minute range. I find I usually dip the brush two or three times in a 15 minute period, unless I’m filling in a lot of black areas, in which case it will be more.

Next Wednesday: I talk about filling in large areas of black on a page in: Inking With a Brush, part 15!