Your Opinion on Digital Inking

I was intrigued by the discussion in Dispari's thread, but I didn't want to threadjack, so I am starting a new topic.

I am aware that most artists (and collectors) here gravitate towards the comic style. As a comic artist, what does digital inking mean to you? Is it an absolutely essential step in creating a comic art, or a vestige of the past, a habit that merely carried over from the traditional era? It sounded like for some, it is an expected/required stage, while for others it could easily be skipped.

As for me, I don't have a set stages or workflow that I stick to all the time, which could be good or bad I guess. I might start with a sketch, start by blocking in with shapes and values and sketch after, or don't sketch at all and add detail as I go. I have been painting in grayscale first for a few months, but now I am starting to use color from the start.

But my opinion and the way I work is irrelevant in this thread, because I don't know much abou the comic style. I am just curious what comic artists think of digital inking (and working with clearly defined stages for that matter), because it is always interesting to learn how other artists work, regardless of style and medium.

Inking *at all* is better than none. What I am absolutely sick of is seeing scanned pencils or tablet scribbles pretending to be lineart and colored over.

I like lines. Thick, wavy, expressive lines. I don't care much for seeing all the construction work below them, unless that work is *genius* quality - and at that point, why bother even doing anything more

Well, a bad ink job would ruin the composition of a piece. Most of the great inkers I've met and commissioned from time to time (Rubenstein, Layton, Hanna, Scott Williams, Martin) all prefer to ink the original artwork as opposed to a photocopy. I imagine they'd much rather ink a physical piece rather than digitally ink it. They've all said the same thing: there's just more life in the original, physical piece. Inking is not tracing lines. Inking adds and enhances the rendering of the subject matter and great inkers accomplish this through their feel for the actual shape, edges, shadows, and spatial relationships of the subject matter.

Now if you have an artist who's drawn really tight pencils, I think you can use photoshop to process the lines so they look like they've been inked. I believe some of David Nakayama's work had been treated like that before being colored and published by Top Cow.

Ive tried both but definitely prefer the traditional method at this point, ithe digital method seemed to take me longer and it just doesn't have the same life to it. but people like Brian Denham do a great job with digital inks and even some of our own artist's ( who I'm sure will chime in ) love it and swear by it.

I don't really consider myself a comic artist, so maybe mine isn't a viewpoint you're looking for. But the whole process of drawing, inking, and coloring, whether done traditionally or digitally, is really an artifact of the comics industry where a product must be delivered quickly and a division of labor is part of that. Outside of that context, it's pretty meaningless and even something to be avoided.

The people I think are the best comic artists (ex. Adam Hughes) aspire to be like artists outside of comics. The best colorists I see get rid of the black lines by making them a tone and thereby converting them to edges . Real life has edges, where tonal divisions meet. It's doesn't have arbitrary black lines floating in space.

Black lines break depth in a picture, especially where its done badly. Classic examples you see a lot are when someone has a colored piece and decides to arbitrarily indicate ribs with a black line, instead of through shading. Or you see it a lot on cleavage. Instead of rendering the area where the breasts meet, they draw a black line there.

Hey without that black line to separate cleavage, there would be ANARCHY! Is that what you want?!

I disagree with considering Adam Hughes a great comic book artist. His covers are beautiful but his interior pages aren't nearly as strong. A great comic book artist can do both cover art and sequential art. Composition for sequential art is much much more difficult than composition for a single image. At the forefront of sequential art is the artist's ability to tell a story and that should not be overlooked. Lots of comic book artists do work outside of the funny pages and it's a bit unfair to imply that comic book artists aren't Artists. It does not give them enough credit for what is a rare and often times, under-developed skill.

Also consider that black and white lineart is far more demanding in terms of skill than letting colorists do all the detail work.

I've seen plenty of comic art over the years - and the rapid decline of skill after Image started up, and seeing the slow buildup of actual real talent again... inking is necessary. Whether it's done traditionally or otherwise I can count on one hand the number of pencillers who can adequately make their line work so clean that it can be directly colored.

Comic art is its own style. It doesn't have to be anything other than what it is.

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Also consider that black and white lineart is far more demanding in terms of skill than letting colorists do all the detail work.

I've seen plenty of comic art over the years - and the rapid decline of skill after Image started up, and seeing the slow buildup of actual real talent again... inking is necessary. Whether it's done traditionally or otherwise I can count on one hand the number of pencillers who can adequately make their line work so clean that it can be directly colored.

Comic art is its own style. It doesn't have to be anything other than what it is.

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*points to thumb* Jim lee..... Ummmmm that's all I got

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Adam Hughes is an amazing artist. He does the pencil work the ink work and the color, the process behind he's coloring in particular blows my mind. and he's got a brilliant way of adding realism to he's work, so he shouldn't at all be used as an example of what isn't good in comics, while hes sequential art isn't as strong as hes covers etc, the covers are blow your mind good.

The man is amazing at what he does. but so is Jim lee, who is the epitome of the comic book art style and I don't think striving to be like him should be considered any less a goal then trying to take from real art and incorporate it into your work. the man is amazing.

Ink is a necessary step in my opinion. Adam Hughes inks as well he just color's over the lines and he's pretty much the opposite of the traditional comic book style, One thing i love about Hughes is that the pencils are important to the finished piece ( before coloring) often times he uses pencils and markers to shade before inking the black out parts. and he's lines always look as good as the finished color.

but anyway, I still prefer traditional ink and I think it is just as important as color or pencils

I've found what I've seen of Hughes' sequential stuff to be excellent. It's too bad he hasn't done any in a while.

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A great comic book artist can do both cover art and sequential art.

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Arbitrary definition. The industry obviously considers him a great and his covers sell books. And I disagree with this:

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Composition for sequential art is much much more difficult than composition for a single image.

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In some ways composition for sequential art is easier, because you'r dealing with a lot of reaction shots, establishing shots, etc. Very familiar stuff to anyone who has studied film narrative/cinematography. If Hughes' sequential stuff is less awesome, it's most likely due to the fact he has less time to work on it.

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Lots of comic book artists do work outside of the funny pages and it's a bit unfair to imply that comic book artists aren't Artists.

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I don't believe I said that anywhere. My point with regard to this thread is that the standard pencil-ink-color approach to doing comics is something that developed due to industry constraints.

If you like to do comic art and don't need to do it the industry way, you don't NEED to ink at all. And in a general artistic sense that's a good thing when you get into color work and the black lines will be problematic.

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If you like to do comic art and don't need to do it the industry way, you don't NEED to ink at all. And in a general artistic sense that's a good thing when you get into color work and the black lines will be problematic.

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from my understanding the act of inking is basically selecting the lines that are good and highlighting them, making a clean lined image to work from and the cleaner the lines the easier it is to color. its also crucial for adding definition

the only reason I can see that someone serious about there comic art would be against inking is if they cant be bothered learning how to do it properly and I could understand the reason why, That Sh*t is hard to do.

Seems to me that you are assuming just because you ink you have to be stuck with the black lines. black lines are easy enough to tone in Photoshop, so it seems to me your problem isn't with the process of inking but with black lines. which are 2 completely different things. a good colorist knows how to lighten the lines that need to be lightened and leave black what needs to be left for the sake of definition. Adam Hughes leaves quite a bit of black around he's figures to pop em off the background.

If you just want to create pretty pictures, skipping the ink's is fine. But if you want to develop professional looking comic art, you gotta familiarize yourself with ink and get used to the 3 step process, cause you can be sure as hell the industry ain't gonna change for you. Adam Hughes didn't start doing covers he worked hes hump off for years to get where he is and it is only for he's name and reputation that he is given the freedom that he has. he started out doing pencil's, now he does the lot.

Inking is both valid and necessary to good professional comic book art. to leave it out is to shoot yourself in the foot.

I would agree that he's a great artist in general and yes, his work appears on comic books. Cover art and sequential art, however, have different purposes and should be distinguished from each other. The real meat of a comic book is the story inside and not the cover, and as such, I think it comic book artists should be defined as the talents who work on the pages inside the book.

Film narrative/cinematography have some parallels but the key difference between those mediums and comic books is that comic books are not moving pictures and that presents a whole different set of challenges. Both comic book writers and artists will attest to that. The sequential art in comic books not only has to show you what's happening in the panel, it has to give the readers clear and strong indications on what's happening between and off panel too. That’s a subtlety that most readers and aspiring comic book artists do not ever really realize.

But, I would imagine that if Hughes' sequential pages were as strong at story-telling as his covers are at attracting customers judging comic books by their covers, the powers that be at DC would toss him an offer he couldn't refuse and pair him up with their best writer on a monthly series. It would be impractical from a business standpoint alone not to do that, so I wouldn't be so quick to assume it's just a time issue and not a skill issue. It doesn't diminish his work any less, but like any other professional, artists do have different strengths and weaknesses.

You stated your belief that the best comic artists are those who aspire to be like artists outside of the comic books. To me, that sounds like you're implying that comic art style doesn't quite measure up to some higher standard that you have in mind.
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Composition for sequential art is much much more difficult than composition for a single image.

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In some ways composition for sequential art is easier, because you'r dealing with a lot of reaction shots, establishing shots, etc.

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While some of your other views are interesting, this is demonstrably false. If you want proof, pick up probably 70% or so of the comics on the market right now (probably 90+% during the peak of the 1990's X-TREME movement). Sure, the individual drawings aren't always that difficult, but putting those into a readable story is fricking hard and even the majority of the folks out there professionally doing comics still aren't all that good at it.

For me, the story comes before any artistic considerations. So while I think it's fair to say that Adam Hughes is a fantastic draftsman, he isn't a spectacular comic book artist. Kirby, Ditko, Crumb, Spiegelman, Eisner, Miller? These are amazing comic book artists (meaning storytellers in the sequential art medium). Hughes can out-render all of them, but that doesn't make him a better comic book artist.

When I digitally ink something it's because it's convenient and I plan on sharing it online. I still love getting out the brushes and the dip-pens, but I can't exactly do that all the time. I need to spend time getting better at both and I think both have their strengths (digital inking's ability to just hit "undo" being it's biggest one).

In many ways digital coloring is one of the worst things to happen to comic book art. Most of the time it looks best over terrible drawings that have no real detail of their own, allowing the colorist to go nuts. You take something like a Neal Adams page and throw all those lens flares and all that nonsense in there and it's just a mess even though the drawing underneath is fantastic. So few colorists seem to have learned the term "subtle," especially among fans out there doing less than professional work.

Is this good professional comic book art?

http://www.alexrossart.com/wallpapers/jla1_800.jpg

Note areas such as where the back of Superman's head ends and the background begins. No contour line there because the tonal variation creates an edge, which I discussed earlier.

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If you just want to create pretty pictures, skipping the ink's is fine. But if you want to develop professional looking comic art, you gotta familiarize yourself with ink and get used to the 3 step process, cause you can be sure as hell the industry ain't gonna change for you.

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I don't have any interest in working in the industry. I like to do comic art art though, ie art with some sort of superhero or fantasy theme you might find in a comic book. I see plenty of this kind of art that is good and professional that doesn't involve comic style inking.

Comic book art is a subset of the illustration field. If you look at the field as a whole, "inking" is far from a defining feature. If you're goal is to work in the industry, then by all means develop your inking skill. If it is not, then by all means DO NOT get hung up on inking until you have mastered basic rendering of 3d form.

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But, I would imagine that if Hughes' sequential pages were as strong at story-telling as his covers are at attracting customers judging comic books by their covers, the powers that be at DC would toss him an offer he couldn't refuse and pair him up with their best writer on a monthly series. It would be impractical from a business standpoint alone not to do that, so I wouldn't be so quick to assume it's just a time issue and not a skill issue. It doesn't diminish his work any less, but like any other professional, artists do have different strengths and weaknesses.

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He's currently working on a Wonder Woman title which they have him drawing and writing, FYI.

I don't think it's so much that DC (or Marvel for that matter) think he's weak at interiors as he usually has no time with all the cover work he's got to do. His sequential work is strong enough for most comics, even if one believes it isn't quite up to par with his pin-ups or cover work.

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His sequential work is strong enough for most comics, even if one believes it isn't quite up to par with his pin-ups or cover work.

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it's pretty hard for anything to be on par with Adam Hughes's pin up work

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Is this good professional comic book art?

http://www.alexrossart.com/wallpapers/jla1_800.jpg

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Notice that I didn't list Ross as a great storyteller. Also, this is a cover. It is an illustration.

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I like to do comic art art though, ie art with some sort of superhero or fantasy theme you might find in a comic book.

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I'm thinking our definitions don't jive . . .

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Comic book art is a subset of the illustration field.

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aaaand there we have it.

Illustration denotes a single image telling a story. Using multiple images to tell a story is in no way a "sub-set" of anything. Comics (with a capital "C") are two or more images placed sequentially to tell a story or portray an action. It has nothing to do with style or even rendering medium (two photographs next to each other can make a comic, for instance).

You can illustrate something in a comic book style I guess, but that's not really what anyone else here seems to be talking (at least not to me).

You are comparing apples and oranges. We're assuming digital inking within the confines of creating a comic book. You're using an overly broad definition of a loosely defined style. Under your definition all of Frank Frazetta's work could be deemed "comic book" when it's really just illustration with a fantasy theme. Your definition would even lump in some of Mucha's work if you're not careful.

I'll be interested in seeing how his Wonder Woman title works out then and whether or not he can keep it on a schedule. I do enjoy his illustration work and have made several attempts at getting a convention sketch of a friend's character,(stupid random names out of a hat) but after seeing some of his fill-in stories and other sequential art, I still think it's not quite his forte and there are *comic book* artists better suited to the task. I know I'm not the only one who thinks so, either here or in the actual industry itself.

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Film narrative/cinematography have some parallels but the key difference between those mediums and comic books is that comic books are not moving pictures and that presents a whole different set of challenges.

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Not really. Editing is based on shots--small segments of screen time filmed from different angles and distances. The shots are arranged to maintain and enhance narrative flow. Some directors will shoot improv and edit after the fact, but it's common for story board artists to to have the entire film storyboarded out, scene by scene and shot by shot. If these storyboards were more elaborate and had text--viola comic book. Not exactly the same, but not that far off either.

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You stated your belief that the best comic artists are those who aspire to be like artists outside of the comic books. To me, that sounds like you're implying that comic art style doesn't quite measure up to some higher standard that you have in mind.

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Well first of all I don't feel that comic book art generally matches the quality of fine art or other illustration. Not because the artists are less skilled, but because of the constraints of the medium. Pace of production, quality of printing, etc.

Secondly, I think the best artists in any discipline bring in influences from other traditions to keep the discipline evolving.

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While some of your other views are interesting, this is demonstrably false. If you want proof, pick up probably 70% or so of the comics on the market right now (probably 90+% during the peak of the 1990's X-TREME movement). Sure, the individual drawings aren't always that difficult, but putting those into a readable story is fricking hard and even the majority of the folks out there professionally doing comics still aren't all that good at it.

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That could be an indication of many things. Probably the only thing it demonstrates for sure is that publishing standards have dropped.

To answer the OP:

1) As a comic artist, what does digital inking mean to you?

It is the sound of inevitability. Think of it from a publisher's viewpoint. If you can cut down on the time it takes to transfer the pencil art to the Inker, and then wait for that person to do his job traditionally. Seconds = money.

I am not saying that traditional inking should fade away, it is too beautiful an art form to do so, AND so very few know how to do it well. A LOT is lost in digital inking, and it NEEDS the hand of a traditional artist to reinvent the process from slick to buttery again. To rich and vibrant, because black line can be all those things on it's own...

BUT, digital inking is a virus, spreading through the industry, and it WILL be the norm eventually. Hopefully it will not be as ugly as it is when it first began. But like any new medium, and mind you this one is only 15 years old, since SPAWN first came out. It will continue to grow, and get better... at least that is how I optimistically look at it.

And yes I ink only digitally, but I started doing it from scratch just like most of us, and for me it's about time management... and pushing my skills back to the look of the real stuff. [

2) Is it an absolutely essential step in creating a comic art, or a vestige of the past, a habit that merely carried over from the traditional era?

No and Yes.

Let's do a little history, here is some Durer 1498, some Da Vinci 1510 and some Dore 1883.

Notice the use of dark and light, of line and negative space... those are things that make inking the hotness we know it to be.

Every artist after them has striven to be that good.

The Comic Inking we enjoy today has so much tradition behind it. It is not just the arbitrary markings of today. What is that crisscross thing some of them do on the thigh muscles? My brain just locks up looking at that. Sometimes it can be fun, but Liefield seemed to abuse the use of it.

Anyway, that is the history, The correct use of inking is to give dimensionality to the flat form. To heighten the rich drama of black spaces, and to give us that "thick to thin dance" to indicate what is a soft, heavy, light, dark object.

If all your line weights are the same, you picture is woodcut at best, at worst it is a black sink hole of flatness. Inking correctly shows us where the light source is, can create textures, can expand on perspective.

In other words it is essential.

But only if you want to create something that much more believable. If you skip this step, no matter how tight your pencils are, it will show...

3) It sounded like for some, it is an expected/required stage, while for others it could easily be skipped.

Again, it's to their own work flow. I draw in lighter shades on a new layer, and "ink" black over those. My sketch can be nothing more than a bunch of ovals and diagnol lines, and the true drawing comes out in the inking.

4) I have been painting in grayscale first for a few months, but now I am starting to use color from the start.

Chiarroscuro = FTW!

5) I am just curious what comic artists think of digital inking (and working with clearly defined stages for that matter), because it is always interesting to learn how other artists work, regardless of style and medium.

I gotta run, but I will post stages when I get back... to further explain. cheers!

LJ

You're not participating in a discussion so much as telling us how much cooler you are than we are. Us comics fans and aspirants should really go into oil painting/watercolor/whatever you've got a thing for if we want to be real artistes amirite?

I notice that when I've dipped into art history (and I'm not the only one to do it) you haven't responded to those portions of the posts.

The fact that storytelling is hard and is completely different than film is not an indication of lowering standards within the industry (heck, thing's are getting better all the time really), it's an indication that it is hard.

A film editor deals with one shot at a time. Sure, there's an element of composition during the actual shooting of the scene, but that isn't the editor's focus. They're taking beats and assembling them into a story.

An artist doing a comic is doing the directing, the acting, the cinematograhy, the lighting, the sound editing, and number of other functions. That page has to contain images that move the story forward while also being sure they are visually pleasing, and in the case of the best of them, fits an overall design for the page that makes it eye-catching as a whole as well as in it's parts.

How many panels should there be? Should there be any panels at all? What shape should those panels take? How much of the story do I tell on this page? Do I make it a two-page spread? Am I adding too much or too little background, messing with the flow of the story?

You're simply wrong about a great many things here. Making good comics and making pretty pictures are two different things.

Comics are rendered in pencil, then inked, then colored (usually by 3 different people) because it's the fastest way for these specialists to churn the stuff out. The fact that you go from Golden Age rush to modern polish is a statement to artists taking their medium more seriously. Look at Will Eisner's work in the 40's when the only (and I mean only) concern was getting things out as quickly as possible at a minimum level of quality compared to the work he did before he died where he was doing ink-washes and constantly experimenting with layouts and style.

I bring him up because there's certainly a place for work that isn't essentially a slick black and white image with computer colors slapped over it, but we're not discussing painted comics or 3D rendered comics or photo-comics. We're talking about the traditional way most people make them.

Crapping on the idea of black and white images showing fantastical scenes is to insult art going back all the way to when we were slapping berry pulp on cave walls. Don't go there.

PS: I was only a few classes from being eligible for an art history minor and have thought about going back to school with that as my focus, so you really don't want to go there.

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the only reason I can see that someone serious about there comic art would be against inking is if they cant be bothered learning how to do it properly and I could understand the reason why, That Sh*t is hard to do.

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Its not hard to do, just extremely tedious.

I am currently weaning myself off of my beloved Rapidograph pens [no longer avaliable in my area + extremely expensive] and inking via traditional pen is.... yeesh. To me, the worst is that now I have to be really careful about stray drops falling off the nib at any moment.

But skip inking? No way. I am one of those hard-core, do-it-by-hand types anyways. Or perhaps its just that I cant afford to drop $500 on Photoshop just now.

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I am currently weaning myself off of my beloved Rapidograph pens [no longer avaliable in my area + extremely expensive]....

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You aint kidding on either count. I used to love those things but mine have long since run out of ink or dried out without being replaced. I ordered some "wonderful" brush pen only made in Japan that was supposed to be the cat's meow, but I hated it. Wish I could remember what it was called.

More and more I'm just giving up on any kind of device that I don't have to dip in ink to use. The lines just aren't as crisp and it always looks terrible when it's scanned. Used to love my Sharpies too, but I just can't use them anymore. The results just aren't up to the standard I want to set for myself.

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. . . I cant afford to drop $500 on Photoshop just now.

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That would put you in the probably 1% of Photoshop users who paid for it.

I also want to give a shout out to good paper, because I really struggle with finding the right tooth for proper pencilling and inking. I like a fairly soft tooth for a pencil drawing surface, which is always disastrous when it's time to ink. I'm working on forcing myself to get used to some softer leads, but a lifetime of using nothing darker than a 2B (unless I'm doing a full-on rendering with shading and all) ever is hard to leave behind.

OP: part 2 -

Here is a progression of 3 of the 4 stages I work in, I left out the flats...

Click here to see Gray Huntress come to life!

And a close up of an Actual Size face that I just did yesterday, before shrinking it down for coloring.

Click here to see Jackalynn face to face!

I use to work ultra tight, and still do sometimes, but for now, I know what my digital ink brushes will do. So I try to get a flow going there, and that's where all my real drawing happens.

If I were inking my old pencils the way I use to... it would just be to "heighten" my already established lines. In this new way, I create as I go. Although the close up face was done without a blue sketch.

LJ

... and now back to your regularly scheduled argument...