Inking

Hi, Phil!

There are as many tools for producing crisp lines as there are artists who produce them -- the important factors here are practice, craftsmanship and knowing a few production tricks. (I'll get to that last one in a moment...)

Tools:

For brush and ink, always use an opaque, waterproof black like India Ink. Most sources recommend red sable brushes -- both Winsor Newton and Grumbacher make great ones. Why red sable? Because they tend to flex -- rather than flop -- even when loaded with ink.

Pen and ink: There are several types of pen nibs to choose from. The trick is to find the one you like the best and practice with the ones that produce the lines you want. You'll want to try a crow quill pen for fine lines. For lettering: Try a Hunt "Globe" 513, a Speedball B-6 and D-5.

Mechanical pens: For ultra-crisp lines, learn to use Rapidograph pens. A set usually contains an ink cartridge, one holder, and several assorted pen nib sizes. These are very hard to learn, but produce beautiful lines for those who've mastered them.

Markers: I'm not talking El-Marko or Sharpie (although some professionals certainly use them) -- rather, you should try pens from the Pigma Micron line. Again, all sorts of sizes can be bought at your art store. The advantage these pens hold? They stand up to constant use better and the ink is archival -- it simply stands up to time better.

Resource Material

I have a personal favorite, but it dates back to 1976. The nice thing about that is that it doesn't allow for any forms of digital cheating (Photoshopping, doing line art in vector graphic software, etc.) AND it has a *very* good description of the offset printing process and process color breakdown (the more you understand about how your work gets printed, the better you can use the knowlege to make it look great once it does get printed).

It's called "The Complete Book of Cartooning" by John Adkins Richardson. A quick peek on Amazon.com says thet the book is out-of-print, but still available in new or used form.

And, hey, if you like those Marvel lines, who better to learn from than John Buscema? "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way" might be aimed at the novice, but I keep turning to it for advice when I need that mental pep talk from The Master. Good advice on craftsmanship and tools -- and beautiful Buscema line work to Marvel at. :)

Ah, I promised a production trick, didn't I? First off, to really get a nice, sharp line, always draw your original work about twice the size as it will appear in final publication. Shrinking the art helps minimize those little natural quivers and shakes our hand invariably gives to the lines we draw.

The next few steps are for those processing their own work in Photoshop. First of all, scan that lineart in as "Greyscale" at 600 dpi. Yes, it will be a huge file -- but trust me, it gets better. Open your scan in Photoshop. Go to IMAGE on the menu, pull down to ADJUST and then over to THRESHOLD. You'll get a dialogue box that features an arrow you pull to the right or left. The effect this dialogue box gives is to bump all pixels above a certain percentage of grey up to pure black and turn all pixels under that value to pure white. The pointer you drag, effectively, determines that value of grey.

Experiment here. Pulling the arrow way to the right will cause your lines to actually get thicker (sometimes this is a neat trick to know). Pulling the arrow all the way to the left will leave you with wispy, spiderweb-like lines (not great for reproduction).

Find the placement that best reflects how you want your line art to reproduce and hit OKAY.

Go to FILTER on the menu bar, pull down to SHARPEN and over to UNSHARP MASK. Enter 500 for the amount, 1.5 for the radius and 10 for the levels. Hit OKAY.

Repeat this step.

Now you have a document that has very crisp lines ... all the pixels are either black or white and all the pixels that form lines are tight and compact to the form. But it's still a whopping 600 dpi, right!? How are you going to save all those scans on your hard drive?

Easy. Remember: all those pixels are either black or white. So, why do you need that art saved as "Greyscale?" Go to IMAGE, pull down to MODE and over to BITMAP. Now your file size is completely manageable and you haven't harmed your file in the slightest. If you find a mistake, Go to IMAGE, MODE and pull to GREYSCALE to undo the process (with no breakdown of image clarity). Make your fix and then convert that puppy back to a bitmap.

You'll get work that prints wonderfully, stores nicely on your hard drive and can be e-mailed to clients with no hassle.

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FOLLOW-UP
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First off, Phil, thanks for the kind words and the feedback. I'm glad I could be a help! :)

Secondly, you asked if I had any work online. My daily comic strip, "Greystone Inn," appears at http://www.greystoneinn.net