I find sketching easy but inking is the main thing though, and I can't do it! Does it take a lot of practise or something? My friends find the same problem to.
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- Feb 12, 2006
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Anmras
Pockey!
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Lotsa Lotsa practice. I've been inking my pics for almost 3 years and I still suck at it!
Try buying some nice quality pens, like sakura micron 005 or 08
(my favorite kinds). They're only about $4.50 canadian.0^_^0*hug*0^_^0
If you like to draw, go here --> http://forum.minitokyo.net/showthread/33838/
- Feb 12, 2006
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Yep,Sakura Pigma Micron is really good.I have the 0.05,and I highly recommend it.But I've just started inking too,soI don't really have a clue.I guess you have to trace carefully and steadily,and practice practice practice.
- Feb 13, 2006
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Yes, Sakura Micron are excellent beginning inking pens. There's better stuff out there, but the quality of your tools will only help so much, and it's not worth buying really expensive tools if you can't use them to their full potential. (Although I do recommend picking up quality tools. They help more than you'd think.) And for $1.50-$2.00 a pen you can't loose. If you're lucky like me, and live near an office supply store who doesn't know what they've got, you can even pick them up for $.25 a pen!
I'd suggest getting a thick one, a medium one and a very fine one. The exact sizes don't matter much - pick a few and experenment with them.As for technique, practice is very important, but so is a little knowledge. First of all, vary your line widths! Take some time to study some of your favorite inked works, preferably those which are only inked and not colored. Manga is a good resource for this. Notice how the lines are drawn. Lines which are uniform are boring and not very interesting to look at. (There are exceptions, of course, depending on the effect you're going for...) You can do this partly with pressure. Play with your pens a little - good art pens will vary line width depending on the pressure used. (Again, there are exceptions, but in general...) Use the proper pen depending on the line width you're going for - even if you have to change pens in the middle of a line. This can be tricky to make it look smooth, but with practice, it's possible. Also, you may need to draw multiple lines and "fill it in" for very thick lines.
Now, when to use thick and thin lines varies, depending on the look you're going for, but in general, the thickness or "weight" of the line follows the direction of light. For instance, if you're drawing a sphere, with the light coming down from the upper left, you'd draw a circle, and then ink it with a heavier line in the lower right, which gradually thins out in the upper left. You may possibly not even draw a line at the farthest upper left. Varying lines this way gives the work an appearance of depth and three dimensionality.
Also, try to make your lines as smooth and continuous as possible. Don't try for the perfect look - you'll only mess it up. You're the artist, so what you put on paper is by default "right". ^_- Ink is difficult partly because it's permanent. What you put down on paper stays, no erasing like you can with pencil. As a general rule, I like to tell people not to erase at all, unless they're going for specific effects what require erasing. Put thought into your lines! Before you make a stroke, think it through - decide where it's going to start, where it's going to end and how it's going to behave in between. Then, once you're made up your mind, do it! One of the biggest secrets to inking, I've found, is to make your lines boldly and with confidence. If you aren't confident in what you're doing while drawing the line, it'll show up in your work, and your work won't be confident.
This is all a good rule of thumb, but feel free to experenment. As I said earlier, examine other inked works to see how they do it, then try to achieve the same effect. Don't trace, although it's okay to copy. Ideally though, you'll want to try your own ideas out using the same techniques. Also, just play around making lines and scetches on scrap paper. Use newsprint or notepaper or something - the cheapest crap you can find, so you don't feel like you're wasting paper. It's important to let yourself freely experenment - even if what you draw there looks like total crap, you're learning what works and what doesn't, and it's important that you don't feel like it has to look good. Good looking work comes only from lots and lots of bad looking work. ^_-Well, I hope this mini-tutorial-like-thing helps someone out. ^-^
- Feb 24, 2006
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Sakura micron? Are they Japanese pens? I use uni-ball signo DX, 0.38 and 0.28.They're ok, for the most part, but the tips tend to dry out, break, or not work.
- Feb 24, 2006
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The best thing you'll ever invest in is an A3 printer and A3 scanner. I don't have one myself. but working like that at school allows yuo to ink at A3 and when you reduce it to A4 any errors are much less noticable. Basically scan, adjust, print, ink, scan, adjust to your hearts content and if comes out good in the end.
- Mar 04, 2006
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Songblade
Renkinjutsushi
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thickness of line is actually made with a nib and quill. Yes, and liquid ink. here's an email I sent to my manga class last week, someone asked the same thing LOL
All righty, there are two systems you can use: cheaper American or pretty rare/pricey Japanese.
American: Get a short and long nib and quill set. Find something that looks like this: http://www.dickblick.com/zz209/05/ It seems to be available in a set, but all you really need are the two holders and the two nibs (short metal things) on the right. Each nib is usualy a little over a dollar so... stock up if you want to. For inks, I recommend Sumi ink, a large bottle is pretty cheap and the ink is great. You can find all your supplies at ... er.. that art supply store next to Ralphs that's next to school (they changed the name from Flax so I don't know what the name is now)
Japanese: same ink, but try and find Deleter nibs. These are harder to find, most American art stores don't carry this brand, so I head over to Little Tokyo, downtown LA. There is a bookstore in Weller Court that's on 2nd street called Kinokuniya. They have a nice little manga section you can go crazy over. The stuff you're looking for is... http://www.animegamersusa.com/istar.asp?a=6&id=SE-3411001!DELET&csurl=/istar.asp?a%3D3%26dept%3DA%26class%3DPN and http://www.animegamersusa.com/istar.asp?a=6&id=SE-3411007!DELET&csurl=/istar.asp?a%3D3%26dept%3DA%26class%3DPN . Note the price, they can get that expensive, but the quality of the nibs is by far superior to the American types. It's your call...
A note: Difference between Japanese and American is that the Americans take a little time to "break in." When you first get nibs, they can be very stiff as they're new and never been used. A stiff nib means ink spatters if you're not careful. Deleter nibs are somewhat softer and the ink flow is steadier if you handle it right.
Big note on paper: You want to NOT use ink on Canson sketch paper and assorted paper that looks to be textured. No cheap paper, photocopy paper, etc. Ink tends to either absorb too fast and start feathering across the paper or absorb too slowly and you run the risk of smearing your drawing before it's all dry. I ink on Copic marker paper (since I use copic markers) but I think any marker paper should do okay, as well as the hard cardstock I've seen a few of you grab on my recommendation. But don't take my word for it, experiment.
If you marker over your inks, I HIGHLY recommend you wait a few hours for the ink to dry.
- Mar 12, 2006
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