How Much Freedom Do Pro Inkers Get?

We talked about this question-with-many-answers a few sessions ago.

Here's one unique answer: From several years ago, a high-visibility title with big-name penciler John Byrne doing so-so work and a mediocre inker named Nelson taking considerable liberties with the inking. In making several sensible changes, Nelson takes the work all the way from "Enh..." to "Meh."

Yes, Byrne drew Supes with legs of two different lengths, his own peculiar and fanciful bullshit leg anatomy.

But despite Nelson's anatomical improvements, and rationalizing of shadows, it still isn't really very good, is it? Maybe only good in the eyes of the editor, who likely urged Nelson to fix things up, and was probably good and tired of Byrne turning in half-baked work.

(Though comics are in some sense done to a higher standard now, remember it's still a job, one that does not demand perfection.)

This non-uplifting, unredemptive little fable reminds of us of that time-honored maxim, "You can't polish a turd." When something is fundamentally off, you can't fix it with little adjustments.  You really can't.  You can massively redraw...  But many inkers are not good enough draughtsmen to pull it off, even if they felt it was the right thing to do, had the OK, and didn't mind putting in extra effort for the same money.

So what could have prevented this admittedly inconsequential flub in the first place?

Thumbnailing a better pose early in the process.

John

No Class 23 September

Hi, You Guys--
I'm going to be away at a convention in Santa Rosa Saturday, so I will see you again on the 30th.

I haven't decided on a topic. Please let me know if you have any requests!

John

For People Interested in Shadow Plotting.

Hey Everybody,

Here's a video I made a few years back to show how even a little awareness of the Law of Parallels can help you make simple shadows correctly, and bring a little extra reality to your created world.

Just as the vertical stick cast a shadow that went vertical when it hit a vertical wall, so does this simple box, which kinda looks like an office supply cabinet... :)

John

What's Going On Next Time

Hey Everybody!
When we meet again on the 16th, I plan to cover a bit more on light and shadow:
The effects of bounced light, How to plot basic cast shadows, and Shadows that fall on other objects.

PLUS

We'll have our usual visual storytelling exercise, with an emphasis on the manifold blessings of  thumbnailing, which is the most time-saving species of drawing you can do!

Then I'm proposing we do an exercise on expression, which is always fun. I'll bring in some reference photos to work from.

 Here's a peerless model sheet, while we're on the topic of expression...

"HoneyLemon" Model Sheet. Big Hero 6, Disney, 2014. Shamefully, I don't know the name of this artist.

That's the plan!

See you Saturday, 

John

Saturday's Handouts!

Here are the handouts we worked through on Saturday.

The purpose of the pictures of Jeremy Irons and the Firefly guy is to compare the differing effects of two closely related lighting schemes. These are both split lighting schemes where one light source is stronger than the other, like the last of the Klaus examples. 

We all agreed Firefly Guy's picture, lower right, was by far the more "comic-booky":  It is lit more dramatically, because there is much more of a contrast between the intensities of the two sources. That created a big chunk of near-blackness. Plus the terminator (the border between lit and unlit) is nearly on the center of the face, which is striking-looking.

There are many subtleties in picture of Irons that would be of interest to a naturalistic painter, but I think replicating that in a comic would be three times the effort for half the impact.

And this ties back to my big point of the day: You can copy cool shadow patterns from photos and artists like Klaus (totally legit), or you can work the shadows out simply, using simple geometric solids as your mental model, and also get something very strong. 

See you on Saturday! Remember that we're off Sept. 23 and Oct. 21.

John

Tyranny of the Sharper Edge

Hey Everybody,
Here's that idea I tried to get across in class Saturday. I think this makes it clearer:

For those of you who missed Saturday, the terminator is the border between lit and unlit.

We were talking about soft edges and hard, in both shadow and reflection. The harder the edge of the form, the harder the terminator and the reflection. 

John

What Happens Saturday...?

Hey, Everybody! Looking forward to our September 9th session. For warmups, we're going to do our usual storytelling exercise, seeing if we can get it to under half an hour.

What else will we get under our belts with this session?

I'd like to see if I can simplify shadow placement for everyone, and I'm devising a handout that I think might be able to do that. We'll revisit the topic of edge control too.

Shadows on objects add so much drama and 3D solidity to a page. And when those objects are your characters, the benefit is redoubled.

Another Few Words on Inking

To put the final polish on our recent inking concentration, the timeless thoughts from a terrific inker and friend (and writer), Ande Parks:

See you Saturday!

John

P.S.: To get the most out of this course, I recommend you print out Ande's above Tweets and the previous post (The Inking "Bible") for yourself.

Inking "Bible"

Thanks for coming today, you guys! Great to see attendance climbing. Here's the final edit on the handout from today's session. I would like to recommend that you print it out.

Inking notes

Mixing it up

Varying these factors adds huge amounts of graphic snap and assurance to your inking, even if you are using them kind of willy-nilly:

1. Line Weights
2. Curves and straights (in outlines)
3. Inking techniques
4. Soft Edges and Hard (I forgot this earlier drafts!)
5. Line quality — see below

Making it easier

• Warm up!!—see examples of techniques below. Make some up! :)
• Note that, if you blur your eyes, some of these techniques pictured below yield a transition from dark to light. Others make a more even gray.
  
  
  
• Practice light touch for fine lines
• Light, swift touch for “verve.” Dead-line tools like Microns can feather—with the right touch and the right speed of attack in the stroke
• Pulling and throwing feathered strokes —Experiment! 
• Put many tools within reach—experiment with several as you warm up AND as you work 
• (Looking for the perfect tool? Try not to. Throw a wide net. Otherwise, the tool that seems to suit you now may end up stalling your growth, cramping your style. The best inkers are generalists, more or less comfortable with a grab-bag of techniques.)

• Shading should often be a transition for dark to light. IMPORTANT to put the heavier ends of line on the darker side, with the pointed ends pointing toward lighter areas.
• Using line weight to differentiate foreground and background. For example see the crowd of prisoners surrounding the others in the last panel of the Vampirella page.
  
  The light, even line weight makes them look father away. Here’s a stellar example by the late Jack Davis. He used three different inking styles to divide this scene unmistakably into front, middle and back planes! …….. 

• You can vary line quality in accord with:

• Material
• Distance
• Emotion

(Giving all lines similar weight / quality / feel can be dull, and less descriptive. Silk, velvet, wood, stone, stainless steel, hair, e.g., should all be inked with different qualities of stroke, ideally, in many styles, not all.)

• A rule of Thumb: In inking, rule freehand-penciled straights and vice versa—-Freehand-ink ruled pencil straights. (To follow this, you’ll need to do some practicing of free handing straight lines. The idea is to avoid a cold, mechanical feeling in the lines..)
• Try changing both line weight and direction at the same point, as the pros often do. It makes the art look graphic and snappy, not pudgy or sludgy.
• Fear not the break. It adds a little bit of crispness to leave a tiny space between one bit of outline and another.
• Touch (and intention) more important than tools: "tTouch over tools” This means: practiced skill with a range of tools makes particular tool selection less important.
• “Semi-contained” shading/feathering can look cool
• Trap shading: a trap for newbies
• “But I am thinking about every line before I make it,” said my inker friend … Form an intention before each stroke. In time, this will take only a fraction of a second. Still important
• If you can make make a row of identical feathered strokes, good on you. It can be more descriptive and a tad easier to make a series of strokes go through some some of progression, e.g. getting longer, finer and/or more widely spaced. That makes a lovely transition fro dark to light.
• Simplicity is your partner in storytelling, distraction your enemy… 
• As the great Wallace Wood said, “When in doubt, black it out.”
• Be precise on eyes

Want to add bolder blacks but not sure how? Do a "black plan" on…

1 …your rough page layouts (as I did on these), 

2 OR xeroxes of your pencils, 

3 OR a piece of tissue paper lightly taped to your pencils or a xerox of them. 

I found it non-intimidating to use grey marker or pencil. (To be clear,I used the grey to mark where I would put blacks on the page.)

• Remember “X” marks areas that get filled with black. To save time and pen wear, fill with brush or digitally, not with brushpens or pens.

John

_______

Recommended sources for inking tools: eBay; jetpens.com; Kinokinuiya Bookstore in Japantown, SF; Amazon 

Recommended brands: Tombow, Kuretake, Pentel, Zebra, Copic, etc.

Recommended Books (per Sketch and me): Framed Ink, DC Comics Guide to Inking Comics, Drawing Noir Comics