How to ink group run through week 5

[ArtofAleksey]

@Erin-Cortese no i think its for each illustrator to decide for themselves haha i just wish mine were a bit neater.

[Erin.Cortese]

@Aleksey That’s funny you say that because the reason I asked is because I wish mine were so much more loose and natural

[ArtofAleksey]

@Erin-Cortese finding the right balance is key! But maybe it doesnt really matter to anyone but the illustrators themselves

[burvantill]

@xin-li Thank you. It has definitely helped me. I am no longer worried that I might mess up a painting... well that's not entirely true, but it has helped. LOL

[braden H]

Tryin' to get in some local value and gradients and stuff.

It's not a part of my inking brain that I've developed yet

[ArtofAleksey]

@Braden-Hallett looking good. I really like what you did with the glass and the desaturated value behind it.

[chrisaakins]

@Erin-Cortese @Aleksey I like both your lines. I wish mine were neater like yours Erin. Aleksey, I love how detailed you work.

[ArtofAleksey]

@chrisaakins @Erin-Cortese ive realized that I actually dong enjoy using the brushpens as much as i like using dip nibs. Im gonna give thst a go on a few of my inktobers

[burvantill]

@Braden-Hallett This one is my favorite so far. He has a Samwise feel to him. And his helmet so great

[burvantill]

@Aleksey I have a question regarding your orange pencil drawing under the ink. @Jake-Parker does this and I’m trying for the first time. When you scan in the ink drawing is it easy to remove the orange? Jake says it is and I’m pretty good at Photoshop, but I was just wondering what you do.

[ArtofAleksey]

@burvantill i dont do what jake parker does as often, i use “hue saturation” in photoshop first and select “red” or “blue” (depending on what pencil you’re using) from the drop down and put brightness to max or saturation to zero, or both. then i use the “levels” feature because I don’t like how photoshop messes with my lines so it’s always different for the second step.

Another thing im starting to do for time and sanity is draw it on an ipad or clips studio or whatever, print it on card stock in blue or orange (as @Jake-Parker suggested but I might change to bristol because my printer has a special slot for fancier paper and i want to use pen nibs) ink on card stock or on lightbox, rescan it and get rid of the blue/orange in photoshop. This way i can have original inked pieces that i can look at and go “oooo pretty”

[burvantill]

@Aleksey OkayThat’s what I’m doing right now. I drew it on my iPad and just printed it out on card stock. After inking I will scan it back into the puter.

[ArtofAleksey]

@burvantill have you used pen or brush on cardstock? Curious to know if it tears up the paper at all

[demotlj]

I was working on this month's contest and I got really stuck on the color study so I decided to try putting some of this inking practice to work on the piece. It's not easy to apply all of the different gradient hatching for local color and shadows and form and I think I still need more darks. I'd love to hear your critiques on the inking based on what we have been learning. (This is digital technical pen in Procreate.)

[ArtofAleksey]

@demotlj looks great. I think doing just ink might work too. I like how you kept the details vague for the background. The one thing all those lines in the background are doing though is taking some focus away from the characters. I would put nice thick lines around the main characters you want us to see and it should do the trick. It has a really nice older cartoon/ book illustration style to it.

[demotlj]

@Aleksey I think you are right about the background feeling distracting. I'm going to look at some old illustrations and see what they did. Maybe they didn't vary the line direction as much as I did.

[ArtofAleksey]

@demotlj i like the right side. I think the darker left side is fine if the characters popped out more.

[burvantill]

@Aleksey Not on card stock, yet. I’m planning on using my brush pen even though this is a contest project and I may EF it up. I figure, why am I practicing if I’m not going to actually use it, right?

[MOO]

Wish I would have started this with all of you! Not great wifi for viewing her right now. Keep up the good work! I'll just look at your progress and it will help me when I take pen to paper, maybe

[burvantill]

I went a different route today. I just couldn’t get those poor little Zebulon Six marmots out of my head. I think I’m done practicing straight lines for a long time.
This was fun, but I chickened out and didn’t use my brush pen.