how do you personally ink your artwork???
By
Eddy_Swan,
Posted on: 2009-02-15 24:17 in Multi-Media Fan Creations
Tartyr, truthfully, I have no idea on how to answer your question, but Juggertha does have quite a few great guides, including Sketch to Final Drawing. Not sure if this helps, considering the mention of the problem with your hand.
I've also listed more here, Artists Resources.
EDIT: Realized that you said inking, and not Digital Coloring. 
Angel Red: I have 2 tutes as well for Photoshop Elements,
Photoshop's cheaper, easier, slutty cousin... here and here.
Tartyrsauce: what program are you using to color with? If I knew that, I could possibly figure out a way for you to "ink" with it, thereby preserving your pencils.
The only other way would be to xerox/copy your pencils, place tracing paper, taped and folded over at the top of the page so as to not move while you trace your pencils with a brush marker and finepoint.
The reason you trace over a copy is so you don't make indents in your original sketch, which is just as bad as erasing them, or inking them permanently. Also with a xerox, you can try over and over as your inking gets better.
Hope that helps.
Sweet, thanks LJ! I put them in the Artists Resources thread.
Unfortualtely, I'm relegated to PaintShopPro (what can I say, I got it for free from my Sis because she likes her old 8.whatever version.) 
I think the 'best' way to ink depends on what you're trying to do with the piece, there's lots of different ways to ink things each with their own advantages and disadvantages, including the many methods of doing so in a digital medium. I think you really just have to experiment and find what works best for you.
-There's ways to digitally remove light pencils in photoshop, so thats one way of cleaning up a hand drawn piece
-Inking with a brush (Sumi-e works nicely) has nice smooth lines, and once you get used to it can go quite quickly (Though I find doing the fine details with a micron pen to ballance it out nicely)
-Another way I've found that was rather satisfying is to get a non-repro-blue pencil and do your sketching in that, then ink on top of it - if you do a grey scale scan of it, or just run it through a copy machine they blue lines wont show up at all and you're left with nice inked lines. (The poor mans version of this is to do it in whatever colored pencil you have, usually people use red, and to kill the red from the image with photoshop thus giving the same effect)
-Another way I've seen is people who just doing it all in pencil, and cleaning it slightly until they had nice smooth pencil lines. It's usually not as sharp as ink black lines, but it usually has a more delicate look to the lines, and looks more 'hand drawn' because of the roughness.
-Another method is to have your pencil work on one piece of paper, then do your inking on another by setting the blank paper you're gunna ink on above the penciled paper, and either put it over a light box to trace or the cheap version, just tracing it on a window. I've seen people ink it at that point, or use pencil to give it a nice clean look that does the job.
-When I ink, I use sakura micronpens - they come in a variety of thicknesses that makes it easier to control, and give nice steady clean looking lines. Sometimes I'll use a regular brush, or a quill pen which I've found will ink faster and look more natural and 'organic' than a regular pen.
-There's also a variety of ways to ink digitally, but most require a tablet (And most of these methods require a certain familiarity with photoshop, open canvas, adobe illustrator, and/or Flash). One method I've found that gives an interesting and smooth look, is to either scan your finished linework (This method works best with a variety of very thick black lines), or just use a screen resolution of your linework you drew out in photoshop, open canvas or whatever, and run it through Adobe Illustrator (A vector based program) and have it turn it into all vectors and lines. I find the cleaner results you get with this method are when you give it a low DPI image. When its an .ai file, you can bring it back into photoshop at whatever DPI you want and clean it up with the brush tool.
Also, flash has a very servicable brush tool that lets you draw rather organicly, and directly into nice clean vectors that I believe transfer rather well between adobe illustrator and photoshop.
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Tartyrsauce: what program are you using to color with? If I knew that, I could possibly figure out a way for you to "ink" with it, thereby preserving your pencils.
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photoshop.. flash.. and I JUST got Illustrator (*wrinkles nose at illustrator screen*)
I'm taking a college course teaching Illustrator and it still angers me. If you're learning it on your own, TAKE YOUR TIME!!!
If I didn't adore the brush and pencil tools in Illustrator so insanely much, I think I would hate the program. But part of my problem is I'm over-used to Photoshop and want to snap my keyboard in half over certain things just not seeming intuitive to me in Illustrator.
Dunno... some things in Illustrator just seem like they're way more complicated than they really need to be.
But again, for anyone doing comic-style work, just the brush and pencil tools alone are worth the investment. I can't say enough how much easier it made inking for me!
*raises hand* getting used to illustrator here to. its not easy. before illustrator I used comic multiliners at various thicknesses.
.... how would I go about inking dis digitaly then?... Illustrator?.. probably photoshop first to get rid of the grid lines...
mad butcher vs snakes
It depends on if you have a tablet. But regardless, as long as you do the line work on a separate layer, no, don't bother removing the grid lines. You don't have to trace over them, so after you're done with your inking, just ditch your pencil layer and the grid lines will be gone, too.
If you have a tablet; use Illustrator with its brush and pencil tools. But do a quick search for some Illustrator brushes for comic style inking around the net, first. There's lots out there that are free to download if you're not going to use them commercially and give out some cred (generally). You have to mess with a couple settings on the base Illustrator brushes before they're good to use for comic-style inking.
If you DON'T have a tablet, I'd probably go with Photoshop and using the PEN tool to do your line work.
EDIT: By the way, I love those pencils. Your way of putting in a ton of small details with a really fun style reminds me greatly of Rob Zombie.
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Tartyrsauce: what program are you using to color with? If I knew that, I could possibly figure out a way for you to "ink" with it, thereby preserving your pencils.
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photoshop.. flash.. and I JUST got Illustrator (*wrinkles nose at illustrator screen*)
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Do you have a drawing tablet or just a mouse? I will write up an Illustrator tutorial to show you my method, but it really works best with a tablet pen, a mouse might drive you crazy... but like Toxic said it can be done, it just takes A LOT longer.
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It depends on if you have a tablet.
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I have my bamboo..
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But regardless, as long as you do the line work on a separate layer
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ouch.. layers layers.. how i do layers .. hmm...
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If you have a tablet; use Illustrator with its brush and pencil tools. But do a quick search for some Illustrator brushes for comic style inking around the net, first. There's lots out there that are free to download if you're not going to use them commercially and give out some cred (generally). You have to mess with a couple settings on the base Illustrator brushes before they're good to use for comic-style inking.
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are the comic ones that much better?... what if (*gasp*) I actually start doing commisions?... do I have to pay for them then???
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By the way, I love those pencils. Your way of putting in a ton of small details with a really fun style reminds me greatly of Rob Zombie.
[/ QUOTE ] heehee.. ty .. .. (btw, whos rob zombie?)
OK, before you even begin to think about digital inking anything, do yourself a gigantic favor and find some tutorials on working with layers. Maybe there are some in Angel Rad's guide collection stickied thread? Sorry I can't be more helpful, but I live and breathe layers so much that it would be hard for me to explain the basics (I freely admit I'm NO good at teaching detailed processes... helpful hints are where its at for me).
But if you're going to use either of these programs, you must become comfortable with layers. You SEVERELY limit your options otherwise.
And Rob Zombie.
Dig through the ditches and burn through the witches....
I can't believe you don't know who Rob Zombie is?!?!?
I think there are a couple of layer tutorials on DA. You could check there.
Okay here's the tutorial... LJ's Inking Tute
As for using layers, to make new ones, click the rectangle icon for New Layer next to the Trash Can icon, at the bottom of the Layers box.
OR Click LAYER/NEW LAYER at the top bar in Illustrator.
It works like this, anything on top, covers what's on the bottom. So if you have one layer with all your black lines over your "pencils", you can SEE those black lines. If you put another layer over your Inking layer for say "WHITE" correction lines, the white covers the black, and acts like an instant eraser.
Same goes for any color if you use colors. And I have explained how to create a Template layer in the tutorial.
Good luck, hope it helps.
LJ
EDIT: Also there are dozens of things I did not cover... for lack of time and well there's just 10 different ways to do the same thing, so I leave it to you to find other tutorials...
Books on Inking will help you a great deal, a thing to look for is line weight, a combination of thick and thin lines, which you can make by drawing the shape of the line, rather than drawing over and over in the same spot. For that you would need certain brushes, and your Bamboo won't be able to register them because it only has 512 lvls of pressure.
Suffice to say, if you want a thicker line, draw with a thick brush, the stroke box can change your line from .25 to something huge that could cover the artbox in one line. Play around, and DON'T FORGET to use White, on a new layer... I sometimes work with white at the same time, but it's not a good idea cause if you mess up, it takes forever to fix if you've gone too far...
You can also find custom brushes online, ones that are thin to begin with or that are pointy on one end, do a search on DA.
Check out Dane Rot on DA or Brian Denhelm, he inks professionally and mastefully in my opinion. I owe my Illustrator Inking all to him, and the wife who made me use Illustrator for the first time 3 years ago.
Little did she know I would ink with it!!! Heck I draw completely in Illustrator, it saves me a step and no messy erasing.
...personally.. ive been using sharpie markers and overhead transparancys to ink my artwork so far.. ( I HATE erasing good pencil works for inking )..
is there a better way?.... really.. what ways do other people do theres?.. ( I cant use an artist "G pen" for inking due to my horrid left-handed disorder )