Sketch set: BLONG
Working with a different inking technique. You've seen a few tests here over the last year but I'm starting to feel like I'm getting somewhere. I'm trying to reduce emphasis on line weight to focus on my shapes more.
I've enjoyed refining my inking on Steeple (a process that started with the Boom!Box issues of Giant Days I drew - the holiday special and issue 48) but I've started to feel the call of something a little scratchier of late. Where it'll end up, I'm not sure.
Comments (6)
I'm a fan of being open to discarding things when they aren't working for you any more, or working well enough to justify the drag they put on the creative process. (Gives stern look at stiff right thumb.)
I think I might just be tired, it makes me restless, Rob! I tend to revert to the mean after a period of recuperation.
Erm. I like your big, gnarly, Steeple lines. The problem is you make any change, and I will think "whoah, that looks new and fresh". So I got out my Mad Machinery collection to re-adjust my senses. Senses duly adjusted, this is going a bit Art Deco with flat, even lines. Your drawing of Daisy earlier used a conventional-looking nib like Hergé. You gotta try these things, but I still like your current fatter, uneven lines; they are less quiet, more 3D. Probably more work too, worse luck. PS: I could draw but I never got good enough to make consistent, recognisable characters. Maybe next life I will stick at at a bit longer.
I really like how the current inks look but the concentration needed to think about the weight of every line in relation to every other has completely worn me out. It's my job as an artist not to care that readers want things to stay exactly the same when I don't feel good any more.
The subtleties of the inking techniques elude me, but Shelley's pose with the guitar is fab - anatomically totally convincing!
looks magic.