Inking-The Best tool for cleaning up your artwork (Part 01: Origins and Wacom Tablets 01)

I'm still working on my post revolving around Termite Terrace and the animators but work on it has been slow due to demanding that I get my facts correct as well as having some issues getting used to my new Linear Switch Keyboard's lighter actuation compared to be previous Clicky keyboard.

So while my Termite Terrace post is on the backburner for now, Let's talk about inking.

You ever draw your characters after the proper construction method but you don't want to look at your rough pencil lines or your construction lines? 

Then what you need to do is to grab your India Ink Pens of varying sizes or a Wacom Pen and your Wacom ONE Display or Cintiq display and get a grip on what I refer to as Inking.

It's the process in art that's used to clean up your artwork and remove all the rough edges of your artwork and make it look all nice and smooth.

And this technique is mostly used for things like.... well... anything that moves whether it be characters or VFX such as this frame of Homer Simpson breathing fire:

The techniques for Inking depend on how you're doing it. But regardless of how you're doing it, there's a haphazard that needs to be addressed before the inking process and that is maintaining guts to your original drawing.

Have you ever heard of the idiom LOST IN TRANSLATION?
Well here in the art of Inking, It's an issue where no matter how you clean up the artwork, you risk losing a lot of the spontaneity of the original drawing and the result can make your art look more bland and less lively or spontaneous than the original rough pencil.

Take for example this drawing of CRAG from John K.'s Ripping Friends. 

On the left is the rough pencil with all that shading while on the right is the cleaned up inked digital cel.

Notice how the digital cel lacks the subtleties of shading? 

Admittingly, the shading can be addressed during the coloring phase but often at times you need guidelines for doing that shadow shading you see in cartoons.

Have you ever seen those Laika reels of Renaissance Disney animation after the cleanup/inking process and you see those random lines show up on the cels?

That's the guideline meant for the coloring artist to follow along during the color and shading process in production.

But sometimes using shading guidelines on the cleanups is not enough to maintain the guts of the original rough. What's actually important is to maintain the line weight.

As seen on this HOW TO DRAW MANGA book page, line weight is used to maintain the guts of your drawing, especially if for example you're drawing this girl wearing all that heavy shoulder armor. 

And it's not just to add weight to the clothing but also used to make the character less delicate epidermise-wise.

Again, let's take this Anime Girl for an example. Sure she has delicate skin but she's a warrior for crying out loud so she needs to show that she doesn't need anyone help from anyone.

So how can you make her look less delicate? Just add varying levels of thickness on her outlines either by skin or by her article of clothing.

It's rather funny how many artists who draw by hand forget this vital part of the process of art but what I truly take offense is when I see these modern Western Animated Puppet Rigged shows that just use templates to build their characters or use a brush tool that evens out the outlines.

One of the reasons that I'm ribbing on Modern Inking was because just like a lot of artists who are starting, I was subjected to criticism to my pre-2020 digital line art by an art instructor at my College.

I took that criticism seriously and started to do my own art on Photoshop using my own custom Brush Preset in order to get that INDIA INK style inking that I was sorely lacking in my original Colors! SD Card transfer styled art.

So in essence, what originally was the evenly sized outlines of the cel below.....

Became the artwork below that has varying amount of line weight.

I've still got some ways to go but I'll get there.

But how does one get line weight? Easy. Apply pressure on your canvas from the tip of your pen, sharpie, or ink pen.

The same principle applies for Wacom Pens but that's more or less based on the software your Wacom Tablet uses as well as functioning pen drivers. 

How it works is there's electromagnetic sensors on both the screen and the Stylus that work in tandem to give the sense of Led Tip Pressure and rotation which is the reason why your brush tip presets on photoshop rotates when you rotate the pen tip.

Wacom tablets are now the norm for today's digital art because of issues relating cost of the material as well as the environment. Paper and Cels come from trees so switching to a digital environment was the only way for many an artist to go.

But for many an artist, there's an issue of costs for the tablets.

If you're fine with just a tablet surface, then an Intuos, Bamboo, or Graphire tablet is for you. They're affordable for many an artist and sometimes go for less than $100 depending on the retailer.

But if you're someone like me who prefers the traditional draws on paper approach via pen tip, then a Tablet with a screen is the perfect choice but those Cintiqs are overpriced for many artists and the costs go higher the larger the display is. 

Many artists often go for the smaller 13" or 16" pen displays since they're affordable enough on their own.

I haven't used Photoshop for my art in a while since April 2022 when I got my Wacom One Creative pen display due to something in the software increasing data usage on my MSI Laptop's SSD at the time and I've been inclined to use it still after building my Maverick PC due to reading up on the rise of generative AI tools.

I'm not going to repeat myself again after this:

I REFUSE TO USE GENERATIVE AI TOOLS SO DON'T CALL ME AN OLD FOGEY JUST BECAUSE OF MY REFUSAL.

Sorry about that ALL CAPS outburst but you get the gist of it.

The Inking series of posts will be split into multiple parts but I'm not going to get into the nuts and bolts about those until January 2024. 

But I will give you a sneak peak for the next post on the INKING Series:

Software I Use for Inking.

As for Photoshop, Since it's Christmas Vacation for me, I'm going to get more serious on my art and start doing new pieces on the software.... THE OLD FASHIONED WAY. 

No AI Tools! Just good old Roughs, Cleanups, Shading, Blur Filters, Drop Shadows, etc.