Workflow process post: Danmei inktober day 14: broken
Hi! So i was asked how i do my inktober series, and i fancied the idea to share some deep-dive thoughts about my process! I will break it down step-by-step with some additional tips, i hope you will like it~ TLDR: Fill everything in with lots of black ink and then retouch with white later.
For me the sketching part is the most difficult. I am trying to tell a story with each of my piece. I used to draw a lot of "just a pretty boy/girl standing, looking pretty in pretty clothes" kind of art, and for a while now i wanted to focus more on storytelling and dynamics. Coming up with an idea and making the expressions/gestures fit what i have in my head is a constant do-over, and a single wrong stroke can destroy it. For example here i redrew the eyes multiple times, i wanted to portray a deep emptiness & regret, but also a glimmer of hope as hard times will pass. Tip: For complicated poses/angles, i like to use a handy app called Magic Poser. You grab the model and fold them in any pose you want to, each joint can be moved. (even fingers!)
After the more-or less final sketch, i start inking the parts i'm most confident in. I try to leave the white parts empty, but i use white ink overpaint A LOT. (I will cover the materials for this in the next image)
Drawing hair is my favourite part, back in high school i was told a lot that i basically cover every drawing of mine with too much hair. (i remember people mocking me "she can only draw hair", making me delete my deviantart. Then my now-husband wrote to the dA staff without me knowing to reinstate my acc. but still it stung!) I just love how fluid it can be. I draw them lock by lock, first the simple/straight ones, and add more wavy locks later - overpainting with white. I usually do this in digital art too: draw the base, give it depth, then overdraw additional locks on top of it.
4. I tried A LOT of fineliners over the years, and my experience is that the best one for fineline art is by far the Faber Castell - Ecco Pigment series. It's smooth on paper, has very deep black coverage, and doesn't smudge when used with markers. My second favourite one is the Sakura Micron liner pens, it is also smooth on paper and has nice black color, but this one DOES smudge with alcohol based markers, and loses a lot of pigment when you erase the sketch underneath the liner. For very small lines i use the Uchida For Drawing 003 pen. However what i would not recommend is the Derwent fineliners, i paid a lot for these, and its very wobbly on paper, does not have any smooth feeling when drawing a line. It has deep coverage, but very hard to draw a straight line with it, almost always needs some correction. For white fills i use Uni Posca white acrylics marker, its by far the best white pen i have ever used. Super good coverage, mwah!
5. A huge positive side of black-filled fineline art is that we can be a bit messy. You can see i comfortably drew over some lines because i will fill in with black ink later anyway. This way we can draw the lines more fluidly, no need to worry about stopping and releasing. We can add more and more details later.
6. I moved onto filling up the black shadows, again, trying to leave out the white outlines, but if it's messed up, just grab your white ink, try again, problem solved. If you are not sure in a part, - just fill it with ink. If you don't know what to put there, - just fill it with ink! Just try to follow the nearby lines so it gives the illusion of depth.
7. Here are the parts i talked about above: Paint in some locks, then put the white outlines to give them more emphasis. If it's difficult to see through where to leave out parts for the white lines at first glance, just draw over each of them freely, then figure the white parts out later. Tip: the quality of the paper for this is very important. Here, i used marker paper to make the details more easily visible, but on my previous drawings i used various watercolor paper - hence the strong textures. If you will draw over a lot of parts, - inking, white, inking, white - after a while it will damage the paper, and we dont want that. I feel much more comfortable with thick paper types.
8. Filled in with more ink. I covered as much black parts as i can and is still logical. Shadows? Fill it with ink. Lines? Make part of it more thick. MORE. MOREEEE
9. I added a halo because well, he is a god after all, and the too much empty space bothered me above his head.
10. I pre-drew the borders of the parts i want to fill in, especially the delicate parts where smaller liners were needed. It might look goofy at first glance, but this way we can avoid bleeding through where we dont want it.
11. More ink filling. Between the hair strands i use either 005 or 003 pens.
12. Finishing touches with white! Some drips and dots here and there.
And voilá! I put paper texture on it after, it helps hiding lots of goofy lines and splotches of remaining graphite. I also pull the contrast, texture, and black levels up into oblivion in Photoshop. I hope you liked this small tutorial-wannabe! I'm sorry it's this long. I actually cut a lot of text out. Feel free to write down your comments or thoughts or questions if you have them! <3 I also recorded lots of footage (it was super difficult to draw with one hand and record with another, i lean very close to the paper so i had a HARD time adjusting the phone, but managed it somehow) after i filter and cut them i will make a reel and post to my IG!
