Inking - progress of development.

The inking progress is a part of the comic I use to hate as I felt like all I was doing was tracing over my pencils. This thought stayed with me for a long time and it shows in my art as in my early comics which I will analyse later. My latest comic Black Voyage shows my development as an inker and this post will show that journey.

2014 - PIPER

In 2014 I did a comic called PIPER and as you can see the inking is very simple. That's were I was at with inking, I used the ink to go over my simple pencil work so it was easier to color once scanned. This effect my pages as scenes had no sense of depth or personality to them. In panel three the inking is so minimal that it is barley noticeable which is a shame as I think thicker lines would really improve that panel.

In 2015 I understood more the power of inking with my comic Transplant but it still didn't feel like I was 'inking' the pages.

2015 - Transplant (version 1)

 Transplant is by no means perfect as there are many issues with this version. One of the positives with this comic was my inking technique and this page above is a perfect example of this. My line work is still simplistic as I use the same line thickness for a majority of the page and comic. However, in Transplant I explored with shading with black, most of which being in blocks.

This added inking made the pages work far better than they would if I continued to ink the pages like Piper. This is because there is an added depth of detail that enhance the page. There are still elements of this page I change when I was inking to improve them more.

I did not consider these until 2016 when I was drawing Black Voyage #0. Working on this comic change the way I see and produce my inking.

2016 - Black Voyage #0

 

Black Voyage was created in a short time period and due to these time restraints full color wasn't an option so Black Voyage became a B&W comic with selective color. As a result this challenged my inking abilities as before I only used inking as a way to make coloring easier but now I needed the inks to convey tone and shade without the need of color.

From the page above I think it's safe to say the inking on Black Voyage is the best out of the three examples as it conveys detail and has it's own personality. This page and the issue doesn't need color to know what is happening or what they are.

My drawing ability still needs work but my inking has massively improved and I believe if I continue to develop by practicing I will have visually appealing art.

Black Voyage #0 only has selective color as a result, the main article will also be B&W with selective color. This was so Black Voyage had continuity and I believe my work looks better without full color and as long as my ideas work without color that's how I'm going to work.

     The page above is a preview of Black Voyage #1 go give an example of how it will work. The inking on this page does round off the page but I think I over did it on the first panel as I think this panel may of worked better if there was some background to the scene.

On panel two you may have noticed that the wall behind Elizabeth is fairly blank this is intentional. During Black Voyage #0 I drew alot of walls and in some cases they blended with the characters, and I did not want this to happen in this scene. That is why I went with the minimalism approach as it give the hints of a building without being overpowering.

Black Voyage will be released soon in the meantime you can check out the first 6 pages on Patreon                                                              https://www.patreon.com/mosby