#inking tips

First of all, I’M SORRY… This ask is here from probably months, and at first I didn’t have time to answer, but then I just straight up forgot about it and I’m so sorry about this! Hope I can still be helpful after so long, and sorry again!!

Thank you for considering my inking incredible, it makes me super happy! /)u(\ I grew really fond on inking, and it’ll be a pleasure for me to give you some tips!! This post might get a little long so, prepare yourself.

So, first things first!

1. Study the heck out other’s inking.

Take yourself some sweet free time and get something of your favourite authors. Inking, like drawing in general and a lot of other things, can be improved by first of all observing and studying how others do it - pretty much like when learning how to cook!So sit comfortably and get everything in front of you, and begin to really observe! I will give you a lot of examples, and they’ll be all from comics, since these are my usual inspiration because of the job I want to do. If you want to make illustrations, consider various illustrators, or covers of the comics!Just to give you a rough example of just how many inking techniques I looked up and still look at…

… these are just a little part of them. Look at how many different hands you can find, because everyone inks differently - and you don’t need to have them in physical form, you can also just look on the internet, but showing off part of my collection of comics and mangas is nice, haha-

2. Black and white VS coloured drawing

Do you want to make drawings that will stay black and white, or do you want to colour them? This is a very important question you should make to yourself, because the ink will eventually serve two different purposes.

Let me explain.

If you want to make a drawing that will remain black and white, the result will be very flat (obviously, because there will be no shades!). This means that your drawing will need to be clear, which you can obtain by making the character’s border thicker, the background thinner, and/or by making black shadows or elements on the characters to make them stand out.The most practical examples I can make you of this is from mangas:

In these panels from Dragon Ball Super, see how the characters have pure black elements while the background doesn’t? It makes them stand out a lot!

And in this from BBC’s Sherlock’s manga, despite the use of a lot of grays, the characters have black clothes (like John’s, under the jacket) or shadows on them that make them stand out against the background, that remains instead much more clean.

An inking that has to remain black and white is often more elaborate, then, because it has to make the scene as clear as possible with just the white of the paper and the black of the ink!

But, if you want to make a coloured drawing, the inking is generally kept simpler, because the colours will give the drawing the right equilibrium. A very elaborated and complex ink can get completely lost, or even ruined, when coloured - unless you want to make flat colours and want to give the ink more importance, but sometimes it gets lost in there too.

Look at this panel, for example, from PK (which I think is called Duck Avenger in foreign languages?). The comic is coloured, so the inking is left pretty simple, filling with complete black just a couple of things that are useful to the panel itself (pk’s costume, and the background behind the dust, that gives the scene a more scary look). If you take away the colouring, the drawing is very flat: because the colours make everything stand out!

Same thing for this panel of Blacksad: it’s far more elaborate, but the details are left pretty simple, even “sketchy”. It’s the colours that make everything move (handmade colours, even! This comic is fully colored in watercolours!)

Now, it’s not always the case:

In Witch Doctor, the inking is very defined and complex and yet it is also coloured, and the effect is very good! Even a bit “dirty”, which is very nice to see, seeing the horror theme of the story. As someone who has read all of it, I can tell you: sometimes it’s a bit distracting, though. It’s an incredibly complex ink, because the equilibrium between black and colours is hard to find, and sometimes it doesn’t work entirely. But when it does, the effect is incredibly cool and nice to look at!

Personally, my biggest inspiration when it comes to inking is Sky Doll:

The inking is so smooth, but manages to remain dynamic and even sketchy in certain details. And it couples with colours just PERFECTLY.And about this, actually:

3. Make your trait dynamic!

What I mean with this is that I noticed that a good inking trait isn’t the same in the entire drawing. Look up at Sky Doll’s panels, especially the first one: the details inside of the face are thinner than the border of it. To make a comparison, look at the trait that defines the border of the cheek, and then look at the sign on Lodovica’s cheek: it’s much thinner! It gives a clear impression of what is what.For another example, look at my last drawing of Sammy: try to focus on one part, like the bandages on the hand. The external trait for them, that defines where they start and where they finish, is thicker; the inside traits are thinner, and the traits inside them is even thinner.

4. Experiment. A LOT.

You won’t find your way of inking a drawing if you don’t try. Do you ink a lot digitally? Try doing it handmade. Try using only inking pens. Then try to use a brush to ink. They try to mix them! Do you feel better inking eyes with a pen, but hair with a brush? Try it! Try making a drawing with much more complex ink. Then try to make one with very simple ink! Try colouring it! Or even both, and see the difference! And digitally? Try changing brush. Then try inking the whole drawing without zooming in. Try inking it with a brush that doesn’t change size, than with one that changes size depending on how much you press! Try, try, try. A fun idea is also to make a sketch, make various copies of it, and then experimenting a lot of ways on the same drawing, and then see the comparisons! Try really everything, without fear, and without looking for extremely professional stuff: once I made a lot of drawings with a pen! Yes, a simple pen, with the ones you write with! Try that, too!And yes, at the beginning you’ll make a mess after another mess - but you’ll see, slowly you’ll start to get the hang of it, especially when you’ll understand what path is the right for you!

Just to make you an example, always with that Sammy drawing of mine: inks are completely handmade. The face traits, lines of the hair, and thinner details, are all made with inking pens; the border lines and the thicker ones are made with brush and fresh ink; the black of the vest and tie is made with marking pens that are used to write on cds; the washed-out black of the Bendy cutout is made with the same pens, but unloaded!Nothing is ever wrong, just try! And you’ll discover some neat tricks!

(Takes this advice with a grain of salt, but this is what worked for me.) 

1. References. Use them. Can't find the exact pose/scene/thing you're looking for? Frankenstein pictures together until it looks like what you want. 

2. Use a heckin big canvas. Lines will look smoother and mistakes will be less noticeable on a big canvas. 

3. Unless cleaning up sketchy lines is your thing, sketch with an ugly brush in an ugly color. Using a rough, ugly brush means you have to go back and ink on a new layer!

4. Ink with a really small brush. Don't stress line weight unless you want to fiddle over every part of the picture. 

5. Don't ink in pure black, ink in a dark saturated color so you can go back and easily change it later if you want. 

6. When inking, don’t zoom in closer than 100%. Zooming in and inking can  make the piece looks stiff. 

7. DRAW FAST! Draw lines quickly, don't worry if they overlap or are too long. Delete/CtrlZ lines until they look smooth enough to you. 

8. Once you have all the main lines down, go back and clean up. Erase too long lines or overlapping edges. Thicken closer lines if you want, and add fiddly details! 

9. FINISHED IS BETTER THAN PERFECT.