Today I began inking page 1 of my 3 page story. I like the inking process very much, but I think it takes me a while to warm up. I’m not very happy with the outcome so far, but then, the inks lack blacks and rendering as I haven’t gotten to that stage yet. However, I’m not really digging the line work.
I think of “style” as 2 separate categories: idiosyncratic and technical. Idiosyncratic style is the result of the culmination of who you are as a person – what do you know and don’t know, how to do you view the world, what aesthetically pleases you, how does your body work, etc. Technical style is the result of the choices of technique you use – determining whether something is cartoony or realistic, rendering techniques, line weight, light, shapes, what kind of pencil/pen/brush/etc to use, etc.
Both categories are related to each other: technique is related to idiosyncratic in that your knowledge of technique will affect how you make artistic choices. And, idiosyncratic is related to technique in that you, as a person, will continually learn, often by choice, and choose what lessons you want to keep or not, not to mention the fact that the more you learn, the more you change as a person and how you see the world.
Why the tangent?
Usually, by default, I like to draw in a sketchy manner. Depending on what I’m trying to get across, I’ll use different line and rendering techniques, but as a person I like sketch work better than something super refined. I was always in love with Hiroaki Samura’s work, ever since I first read Blade of the Immortal. At the same time, I was angry. It was a long time goal of mine to find a way to achieve a sketchy, spontaneous look with a dip pen the same way I could with a pencil, and here Samura found a way that really connected with me. Were there others before him? I’m sure there were, but Samura was the first that I’d seen that came closest to what I wanted to do. And now, whenever I try to accomplish the same goal, his work is always in the back of my mind, affecting how I go about inking, and it’s quite detrimental. It’s something I continually work on.
The other thing that bothers me is that my hand always hurts when I ink. My thumb, and sometimes my fingers, go numb because of how tight I hold my pen, and I always have to remember to relax my hand. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a balance between a secure, controlled way to hold my pen and relaxing my hand. As a result, my hand hurts, especially under my wrist by my thumb. I’ve heard that Scott McCloud doesn’t have any more hand pain since he started using a Cintiq tablet, but I simply cannot give up pen and paper. Yes, digital drawing does appeal to me, but I want most of my work to be done on paper. There’s a different look and feel to doing art on paper and, often, view art that has been done on paper with traditional media. I’m going to have to find a way around this problem.
In conclusion, I wondered, as my time was up, if inking was actually a process of finding ways to make mistakes and then finding a way to cover them all up.