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In my last article Anatomy Books for Drawing Comics Part 1, I discussed books by Burne Hogarth and George Bridgman. Now I am going to jump over to a former student of Bridgman’s, Andrew Loomis. I honestly never heard the name Andrew Loomis until the early 2000’s. I was on a website called conceptart.org, which I don’t belive is around anymore. It’s a shame, as a lot industry professionals posted helpful content there. Anyway, I was reading a post about everyones favorite figure drawing/anatomy books and quite a few people mentioned a book called Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth by Andrew Loomis.
I had never heard of this book before nor did I know anything about Andrew Loomis. A quick background, Andrew Loomis (1892-1959) was an illustrator, author and art instructor whose work was featured in many magazines and advertisements. He is also known for publishing a series of art instruction books between the years 1939 to 1961. To complicate matters all of his books were long out of print. If you were able to find one in a mom and pop book store you were going to pay a pretty penny for it as the book was published in 1943. You could find scanned pdf versions on the internet, but they were not of the best quality. Luckily, around 2010 I believe, the demand for the books brought them back into print and they are now easily available.
Now, I had said in the first part of my anatomy book article that there was not just one book that was going to teach you everything, well this book comes pretty darn close! In Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth, Loomis put together a tome which covers so many concepts for drawing the figure. Things like proportion, drawing the mannequin, weight distribution, values, lighting, bones, muscles, drawing using landmarks, perspective, flat diagrams, movement and about 100 other things too long to list. It is a 208 page book full of beautiful illustrations and diagrams reminiscent of the type of illustrations found in magazine ads from the 30’s and 40’s. You could spend a few years studying everything in this book, but the information is so worth the investment in time.
Sample pages from Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth by Andrew Loomis
Since I’ve covered the big three of Hogarth, Bridgman and Loomis, I thought I would move on to some of the more recent books that are making the rounds and have found favor with some of today’s top artists.
Michael Hampton’s Figure Drawing Design and Invention is one of the newer books that a lot of artist from newbies to pro’s seem to really like. I would have to agree with them as it is a really great book on the subject matter.
Hampton’s book is like a mix of Hogarth and Loomis. There are a lot of gestural line drawings mixed with traditional figure drawings. Then there are more diagrammatic drawings that isolate certain body parts and illustrate the structure and the mechanics of how the body part works. Most of these illustrations are color coded which makes for easy understanding of the material.
Sample pages from Figure Drawing Design and Invention by Michael Hampton
In general the books goal is to provide a simple understanding of anatomy in order to clarify the mechanics of the figure, help facilitate the invention of figures from imagination, and ultimately develop the artists skills to be successful across different media. Definitely a worthwile book to have in your reference library.
The next book I’m going to talk about is not your traditional figure drawing book, nor does it have to do with comic book illustration. Anatomy for Sculptors Understanding the Human Figure by Uldis Zarins with Sandis Kondrats is a book targeted at sculptors, particularly those sculpting digitally in ZBrush or Mudbox or any of the various modeling programs.
So why put this book in an article about figure drawing for comic book illustration? Because…..this book is awesome! The authors put a lot of thought into the material in this book in order to help sculptors learn how to portray convincing anatomy. The figure is presented as a whole but then broken down into parts in color coded illustrations that run the gamut from diagrammatic images to fully rendered figures.
Sample pages from Anatomy for Sculptors Understanding the Human Figure by Uldis Zarins with Sandis Kondrats
For the aspiring comic book artist, this book is an easy reference guide on how to construct figures, what the masses of the body look like, how they are formed and how they work with one another. The illustrations are a combination of 3d sculpts, wireframe meshes and actual photographs. Sometimes all layered on top of one another to help illustrate how the layers of the body work. So while this book was created with 3D sculptors in mind, there is plenty of reference material to learn from for 2D artists.
This is a book is more about the motion of the human body and how to draw it convincingly as opposed to just learning straight up anatomy. Mattesi stresses the function of each body part and how gravity effects the appearance of the muscle forms relative to the pose the body is in. This is super helpful information for comic book artists, as comics are all about movement and action. If you want to work in comics, you are going to need to know how to draw the body in action convincingly. To that end, this book allows you to concentrate on mastering one body part at a time using the color coded illustrations as a reference guide.
If you like Force: Drawing Human Anatomy, Mattesi has another book called Force: Dynamic Life Drawing which demonstrates the Force line and how to apply the technique to draw dynamic figures. The 10th Anniversary addition has a companion app that launches over 30 videos of Mike as he demonstrates the concepts in his book. So if video is you thing the 10th Anniversary addition is the way to go, if not you can get the standard addition. Either way you won’t be disappointed.
So that is going to wrap up part 2 of my anatomy books article. I really hope these books help you in your artistic journey. I only wish someone would have compiled a list of books like this back when I was a younger man looking for this information. My goal now is to make things easier for the next generation of artist looking to find their way. Good luck to you all!
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If there was one question I would say is the most prevalent amongst anyone wanting to learn to draw comics, it’s what figure drawing/anatomy book should I but to learn from. That is not an easy question to answer because there is no one all encompassing resource that you can buy that will teach you everything. There are some books that have loads of information in them and require in depth study in order to be able to utilize the material. Others have general overviews of the basics to get you up and running. The truth is if you want to draw comics, you will pull information from a variety of sources. Books are a great resource that you can constantly refer to when you need reference for anatomy or a particular pose. Studying from real life through figure drawing classes and just daily observation of people should also make up part of your study program. Since the title of this article is about anatomy books I am going to focus on those books that I feel are the most helpful. Keep in mind this is not the be all end all list of books as new ones come out all the time, and you as an artist should investigate new books to see if you can learn anything from them.
So what books should I start with? Good question! I asked myself that same question back when I wanted to start acquiring reference books. Unfortunately it was the early 90’s and the internet did not exist so I couldn’t just look it up on Google or Amazon. What we did have back then was a magazine called Wizard which was a comic industry fanzine. They would always have interviews with the hot artist of the month where they would ask standard questions like how did you break in, did you go to art school etc. On occasion some of the artist would mention the books they use to study from. One of the books mentioned constantly was called Dynamic Figure Drawing by Burne Hogarth.
Sample pages from Dynamic Figure Drawing by Burne Hogarth
Of course I ran to the local book store to hunt down this tome of anatomical wisdom. When I got it home I remember looking through it fascinated by the drawings contained within. Beautiful rendered drawings of both male and female figures in all sorts of contorted poses. Hogarth was an illustrator and teacher and worked on the Tarzan comic strip. I learned that these drawings were gathered from the various figure drawing lectures Burne Hogarth would give at the schools he taught at, in particular the School of Visual Arts in NYC which he co-founded with Silas Rhodes. The school was established in 1947 as The Cartoonists and Illustrators School and eventually was renamed The School of Visual Arts in 1956.
Many artist from Marvel, DC and Image recommended this book as well as some of the other Hogarth books that were available such as Dynamic Anatomy which actually came out in 1958 and preceeded Dynamic Figure Drawing which came later in the 70’s.
Sample pages from Dynamic Anatomy by Burne Hogarth
The first time I heard of the name George Bridgman it was in a video called Stan Lee Presents The Comic Book Greats Volume #10 with Jim Lee. It was a video series that focused on a particular “hot” artist in the early 90’s and would discuss how the artist goes about drawing comics. You can view the video on youtube here. Jim Lee was demonstrating a gesture drawing and mentioned he wasn’t someone who memorized all of the muscles, but was more into the gesture and studied George Bridgman. Jim Lee, at the time was a monster of comic art. Image Comics was newly formed and in the comic book world, Jim was basically a rock star. When I saw this video my first thought was, hell if Jim Lee uses this book, then I need to get it asap! So back to the book store I went to hunt down George Bridgman’s Life Drawing.
Sample pages from Bridgman’s Life Drawing by George B. Bridgman
The first thing you’ll notice is that the drawings in this book are very crude. What I mean by that is in comparison to the Hogarth books, the drawings contained here are very simplistic line drawings. However, that is the beauty and power of his books. Bridgman used the least amount of lines as possible to illustrate the gesture of the human figure. He used basic shapes and showed how they wedged and interlocked into each other to form the masses of the body and how they work with and relate to one another. Bridgman showed how these forms create 3 dimensional shapes that construct the body. Bridgman was truly a master of gesture and anatomy. Other famous artists that he had taught in his classes are names you may know, such as Will Eisner artist of The Spirit comic, author of Comics and Sequential Art and the man who The Eisner Award is named after. Andrew Loomis, illustrator, author and art instructor whose books I will cover in part 2 of this article was also a student of Bridgman, as was Gifford Beal, Paul Manship, Edmund Ward, Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, and Norman Rockwell. This book along with some of Bridgmans’s other books such as Constructive Anatomy , Heads Features and Faces, and The Book of 100 Hands should all occupy a spot on your reference book shelf.
That is it for part 1 of this article. In part 2 I’ll go over a few older books and some more recent ones that I feel can be very beneficial to the aspiring artist.
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If you belong to or read any of the art forums pertaining to comic book art you will no doubt find a thread or batch of comments pertaining to “cheating” in comics, or more specifically “cheating” in the creation of comic book artwork. Is there really such a thing as cheating in making comic books? Some would argue yes, there is, and list off reasons why any particular offense is considered cheating. Off the top of my head, the ones that come to mind are tracing photographs, particularly if they are not photographs you took yourself; using poseable mannequins either as reference or to trace over pictures of; the use of 3D software whether it is Sketchup for buildings or DAZ3D or Poser for figure work. Some fan famous artists have been flamed for using porn models for reference in their comic work, which isn’t a sin by any means, but when a character should look happy at say a birthday party, it shouldn’t be because they are on the verge of an orgasm as some characters are often drawn by the artist(s), who will remain nameless. Others have been accused of portraying entire scenes from a photo in their work without changing anything about the original photo. Still others have been accused of using their own past artwork to create newer artwork by recycling poses or faces. Lastly, there are those who obviously swipe the work of another artist and do what should be an homage piece but fail to site the original artist or worse, claim it as their own (I’m looking at you Granito!). So are all of these examples of “cheating”, in my personal opinion, no! “WTF, seriously”! Yes, seriously. Why some of the fan perceived offenses I mentioned are somewhere on the scale of lazy to immoral, they are not cheating. So how did I come to this brainfart of a conclusion? Well, that is a good question, one which I will try and break down for you.
What is cheating?
That is kind of a loaded question because the answer really depends on your perspective and what you are applying it to. Cheating can be boiled down to anything you do that can influence the outcome of a something, particularly in a favorable way. At least that is how it is perceived. I think we can look no further than professional sports for the genesis of where cheating has become a negative thing in our culture. Take football for instance, NFL, not soccer. Athletes train for years to get to a professional level. They learn all the aspects of the game and commit to grueling practices and classroom study to hone their craft. At some point every athlete, especially those whose income and livelihood depend on their body, will seek out ways to perform better. They may employ specialized workouts, hire performance coaches, use supplements, specialized diets, oxygen chamber therapy, cold therapy, chiropractic manipulation, custom fitted gear and a host of other things all meant to give them an edge. These technically can all be considered “cheating” because any one of these or a combination of these can influence the athletes performance. Now, no one would bat an eye at any of these things or think of them as bad or cheating. Honestly they sound pretty routine for just about any athlete. Now if we move over to the “dark side” i.e steroids or PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) this is where the negativity come in. This is what gives athletes and sports a bad name. But does it really? Let’s set aside the fact that steroids are illegal (because the government ignorantly declared them in the same class schedule as cocaine and heroine, they are not by the way). What happens if some players take the juice? Well, if they do it in a responsible manner (Dr. supervision) they get bigger, stronger, faster and perform better. All good things, especially if you own the sports team with said players. Well, not so fast. First not every player does or wants to use PED’s, which is fine, it’s a personal choice. The overarching problem with PED’s use is that if say my team is juiced and the opposing team is not, there is a really good chance my team will win if all skills are equal between the two teams. The PED’s being the factor that gives my team a better chance. So what happens when my team keeps winning because we are juiced? Well, ticket sales for games goes up due to increased game attendance. My team gets more TV time or talked about more on the sports radio channels. Sales of team merchandise goes up and money is raked in by the owners of the team, the merchandise vendors, the soda and beer stands, the hot dog cart and pretty mcuh everything else financially tied to the team. This sounds all well and good, except that the other team(s) who lost get the opposite outcome. The bottom line is that some very rich folks won’t make as much money as the other rich folks who own teams. So in order to not have to hear the team owners whine and complain about dollars lost, they ban PED’s to keep the playing field equal and give everybody a chance in the spirit of sportsmanship. Well guess what? Comic book publishers don’t give a damn about any of that nonsense. No publisher who makes money in the comic book business is going to complain because they sold more books due to an artist tracing photos to help get the work done faster. There is no ruling body who will hear complains from DC and make rulings on art etiquette if they accuse Marvel of using Sketchup models in their backgrounds. All the publishers care about is putting out a top notch product and selling lots of it!
So where does the idea of cheating in comics come from?
Honestly, who the hell knows! I couldn’t pinpoint the exact origin of it but it does exist. But why? Why is it so important to some people to point out that something was traced or a 3D model etc. That’s a good question. I think it is rooted in a few things. First I think it’s a bit of hero worship. As comic art fans we all have our favorite artists. As an artist myself I have a slew of favorites who I admire and look up to. But also as an artist, I respect and appreciate what they do and realize to them it is a career. I think “civilians” tend to look at an artists work and see what they can do and to them it’s like magic. These people whose work they admire can literally conjure beautiful pieces of fantasy from nothing but their hand and a pencil. They create something where once there was nothing. Being an artist, if you think about it, is the closest thing a human can get to being god outside of childbirth (creating another human). I think when a civilian sees exactly how the art they love is made and realize that not everything is conjured straight out of the artist brain, that there may be reference used, or some tracing or 3D work, it kinda kills the magic for them a bit. It’s like loving sausage until you see how it’s made! Seeing how comic art is made may be a let down for some people who think artists pull everything right out of their head. Since their image of that artist is now tainted they equate their art techniques to “cheating” because it’s not strictly out of their head. I know this sounds pretty crazy but I’ve heard it myself. I will draw something and use a reference pic and someone will say “oh that’s cool, but you looked a photo, it’s not like you really drew that”! Really, here’s the pic, you give it a go and see how yours looks! In my head a strangulating murder is taking place on said fool.
I think another scenario is artist on artist hate. Well not really hate, but you know what I’m getting at. One artist may be really good pulling things from their head and can pull off some things a less experienced or talented artist cannot do without reference. So of course if the less experienced/talented artist can achieve a similar result using reference the more experienced artist may throw some shade their way to alleviate their ego being challenged. It’s as if the less experienced artists work is not as valuable because the result wasn’t achieved the same way as the more experienced artist. I’ve seen forum comments that echo this sentiment in a bunch of places. Why? Honestly, who cares! Look go to any art school and in any given class you’ll have the one or two prodigy types who are just that good, then you have everyone else in varying degrees of talent. No ones work is more valid than anyones else’s, so why try and put people down. There is room for everyone to create. The marketability of an artists work is determined by the free market and the people willing to pay to consume it, not other artist or haters on the internet forums.
So it’s not cheating?
Now that I ranted a bit let’s get to why the things mentioned are NOT cheating. To do that, I am going to approach this from the perspective of a graphic designer and not a comic artist. “Why the hell are you doing that”, well because the answer is A. I’m a professional graphic designer (who also draws comic inspired art) and B. because at the end of the day, a comic book is a piece of graphic design. It’s no different than a catalog, brochure or sales aid. Basically, graphic design is the intentional pairing of typography and images to create a device to communicate a message, tell a story, convey an idea or sell you something. In the case of comic books, they are created to tell a story but also to sell you the brand. Marvel Comics tells you great stories with their characters but they are also constantly selling you the Marvel brand. So does DC, IDW, Dark Horse and pretty much every comic book brand. Ask yourself how many acton figures you own, how many superhero movies you’ve seen or how many comic book character tee shirts you own, then tell me they aren’t selling to you. Having said all of that, in graphic design we have to employ many techniques to achieve the result that is going to solve the clients problem in an aesthetically pleasing way. That means if I have to trace something, I’m tracing it. If I have to freehand draw it, I freehand. If I need a 3D object I buy a model, model it myself or pay someone to do it. Most of the time we are using photographs which are sourced from stock photo sites or you have to pay a photographer to do a photo shoot unless you can shoot your own photos. Whatever technique I have to use to get the job done I use. This is also true for comic book artist, but for some reason when they do it it’s a travesty! I wonder how many of the people complaining about how an artist gets their work done are actually professional artists themselves? They have no idea what it is like to have to solve creative problems on a daily basis when you are up against a deadline! Not to mention, the artist may have a family to take care of, bills to pay, maybe an ill parent or other personal issues to deal with while trying to get their work done. While I say that, I realize I have it easy as I can use photos, comic artist have to draw everything. While the comic artist draws their imagery, keep in mind that although the art is beautiful and cool, at the end of the day, it’s just a piece of production art, at least to the publisher it is. They use it for their purposes and then give it back to the artist. The end result is a cool looking comic book that can be enjoyed. So who cares if the artist traced all the hands in his art to speed up the process. It still looks cool in the final printed book right? Why worry if your favorite artist traced over Sketchup models to get the look of the background buildings looking right. Maybe he/she had a family emergency that week and had to do that to make their deadline. The book came out on time, it looked great and you bought one and enjoyed it. So why are you complaining about how it’s made. One of my favorite artist has recently been rendering out DAZ3D models and digitally inking over them to complete his work. Although his work looks a bit different then it used to I still enjoy the book, so why crucify the guy for not drawing traditionally? Keep in mind, artist are people with lives and deadlines. Sometimes life encroaches on the deadlines and at times you may have to use the technology at hand to help get the job done on time. That’s called being a professional, not a cheater!
Tracing?
But…but.. what about people who trace everything? They most assuredly are cheaters right. No, wrong! Consider this scenario. A person desperately wants to create a self published comic. They have a great story but they kinda suck at the art. They decide that since they cannot draw that well they will instead shoot photos or get a stock photos (paid) for all of their scenes. They will then trace over the photos for each of their panels to get the basic art structure in place and then pencil in the light/shadows and details on their own. Should we condemn this person for trying to create something that is obviously a passion for them because they cannot execute on the level of other more seasoned artists who do not need to trace photos? No we should not! Obviously the artist in this case would probably like to draw better and perhaps tracing the photos will help them out in that sense, at least if we are to believe what comic book legend Neil Adams says about tracing photos. We should encourage this artist because to not encourage them might rob the masses of a really great story. To not encourage this artist may crush their creative dreams and why should we do that. Like I said earlier there is room for everyone to create. Take the final piece of work for what it is and don’t worry about how the artist got there. Although there is artistry in how a person creates a piece, that part of the journey is more personal to the artist. The final product is the artistry they share with the word at large. Though there are some artist that share their process, not every artist is that open and we should accept that.
3D?
Ok, so tracing may not be that bad, but those 3D model users are definitely cheating, I just know it! Uh, ok, calm down. To answer your question, they are not cheating. They are simply using the technology of the day to speed up the tasks they do on a daily basis. For instance if all you did was draw with a pencil and someone approached you with a brush and a set of paints, wouldn’t you want to try using the “new” technology to make better art at a faster pace? Of course you would, so why are 3D models a bad thing? If an artist can use the models as reference or incorporate them into the page layout and still get a result that is consistent with their personal style, isn’t that a good thing? Especially if they can get books done faster. If you want to see really cool 3D work used to create entire comic books then go look up artist Brian Haberlin and his book Anomaly or Anomaly: The Rubicon. Brian uses a combination of digital and traditional techniques to create some awesome comic art. Is his work less legitimate because he used 3D models in the work instead of drawing everything? Of course not. Are animated movies less fun to watch because the hand drawn animation has been replaced by 3D animation, uh no!
Recycling?
“Alright, we’ll let the tracers and the 3D people slide, but these recycling guys gotta go”! Really, you’re mad because an artist recycled a face from an older comic he/she drew and put it into the current issue. Really, that’s the battle you want to fight? WHO CARES!!! Look if an artist decides to scan in their work so that they can swipe from their own art, let them and quit your bitchin! At least they are using their own art. I’ve read of comic strip artists doing this with some of their characters stock poses. This way they don’t have to redraw it a thousand times. That’s not cheating, that’s called smart!
Swiping?
“Ok, I see your point, the recyclers can stay, but the swipers are just evil”! I will agree with you and disagree at the same time. If an artist swipes another artist work for the sole purpose of doing an homage, I see nothing wrong with this at all, provided proper credit is given to the original artist. This is not cheating at all. However, there are some individuals with loose morals who think nothing of swiping other peoples art and claiming it as their own. This too is not cheating, it is outright theft and it is evil! Back about 2010 there was a self proclaimed artist, and I use the term artist loosely, who was accused of swiping the art of famous comic artists, making some changes in photoshop and claiming the art was his own. Some were outright trace overs. No credit was given to the original artists. Thus the term being “Granito’ed” became synonymous with having your art stolen. After appearing at dozens of cons over the years he was finally confronted by real artists in the industry who outed him and had the con remove him from the show he was at. Word got around and he was banned from basically the entire con circuit. I actually bought a few prints from this guy back before he was outed. Once I found out about his theft I trashed all of the prints.
Those little art dolls?
“How about those little figure reference dolls that are so popular now, those have to be cheating”. For the love of god, no, they are not cheating! Those little art dolls such as the Body Kun DX & Body Chan DX are awesome!! You can pose them in so many ways and the male and female work great together. They have accessories like swords and guns and they even have stands to help pose them in the air. You can pose the figures, take a pic and either trace over it or look at it for reference. Total time saver! If you don’t like those there are others like Max Factory Figma Archetype Next Male and Female Action Figures. Seriously, you can’t go wrong with these. It’s almost criminal to not get a set and use them. Again, not cheating!
To be clear, there is no cheating?
Correct, all of the things mentioned are just techniques used to create production art that at some point will finally be used to produce a comic book. The only way I would view these techniques as cheating is if you are learning to draw comic art and you rely too much on these techniques to the detriment of your learning to draw. At that point you are cheating yourself of the joy of drawing. Seasoned artists and pros may use these techniques, but they have also put in the time to learn to draw, they are using these things as a time saver, not a crutch. Remember when I said cheating depended on your perspective?
Well that’s all I’ve got. I’ve been wanting to write something about cheating in comic art for a while since it is so hotly debated in art circles. This is just my opinion so feel free to agree or disagree. Now to go work on my anatomy book post.
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This one is going to be a short post. In my last post I talked about some of the tools you can use for inking. While not a definitive list of everything available, I gave an overview of some of the basic tools used to ink a drawing. So great, you got a pencil drawing done on a nice piece of bristol board and you already bought the brushes, ink and pens you want to use. Question is, how the hell do I use this stuff?! In my very first post on this site I mentioned some of the best books for drawing comics. In those books they all pretty mush review the tools to use and have some small examples of how to ink. Most of them do not go into much depth. However there are a few books on the market that do go in depth and provide exceptional examples of how to ink. The first book that comes to mind is The Art of Comicbook Inking by Gary Martin with Steve Rude.
The first edition of this book came out in 1997. I remember getting this when if first came out and was ecstatic. Up until then, there really were no books strictly on comic book inking. Yes, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way talked about inking but not that in depth. This book however covered all the bases. From the tools, to line weights, spotting blacks, textures and advanced techniques like using zipatone. There were examples from several different prominent inkers like Scott Williams, Brian Bolland, Terry Austin and Kevin Nowlan just to name a few.
About 2005 Volume 2 of the book came out that added samples from about 33 different inkers. The material covered is basically the same only with more examples. There were also pre-pencilled boards included in the book you could tear out and practice your inking on.
A quick search of Amazon has revealed that a third edition of this book is coming out on October 15th 2019. It looks like there are some new names added to the roster of inkers as well as some of the names from the first two volumes. This expanded addition also goes over digital inking. Anyone who has searched Youtube for inking tutorials has no doubt come across tons of digital inking videos. This is an important addition because it is where the industry is going. Every publisher wants their artists to be able to work faster and more efficiently while also providing high quality work. Computers with digital tablets allow you to do just that. Again, search Youtube and you will see a lot of artist have changed their workflow to incorporate digital tools.
This book came out in 2003 an is part of a series of subsequent DC books. The others being DC’s Guide to Pencilling Comics, DC’s Guide to Creating Comics: Inside the Art of Visual Storytelling, DC’s Guide to Coloring and Lettering Comics and DC’s Guide to Drawing Comics Digitally. Inking aside, All of these books are stellar and deserve a place in your artist library. That said, DC’s Guide to Inking is a pretty thorough book. Klaus Jansen, who is inking royalty, goes over everything you need to know from the tools of the trade to the techniques. There are sections about what an inker does which begs the question, “To trace or not to trace” (Chasing Amy fans will appreciate that discussion). The rest of the book talks about the use of light and dark, textures, feathering and how to actually ink.
You might be thinking, how many more comic inking books are there. Truthfully, that’s about it. There aren’t many that I have found. There may be a random one or two on Amazon by independent publishers, but I have not read those so I will not comment on them. I think that lack of books on this subject, and comics in general is due to the rise of the internet, in particular sites like Youtube, Twitch, Udemy, Gumroad and Skill Share. While some sites like Youtube are free and you can literally swing a cat and find 40 inking tutorials. Other sites like Udemy allow you to pay for professional instructions in a plethora of subjects for very little money. While I will say books are great for reference and inspiration, they just don’t beat watching a video of an artist ink, pencil or color a drawing. I feel that seeing the exact technique is a faster way to learn, or at least enhance what you learned from the books.
If videos are your thing then I will mention a few here that may help. There is a school out in California called The Gnomon School of Visual Effects, they also own The Gnomon Workshop. They used to sell DVD tutorials on everything from comic illustration to ZBrush sculpting to post production for film. Instead of the DVD’s they have moved to an all digital platform where you can but the tutorial you want or subscribe and get all their tutorials. As it pertains to this blogpost, the tutorial Comic Book illustration Vol. 2 Comic Book Inking with Joe Weems is is a great instructional video. Joe goes through the process of inking an illustration pencilled by Dave Finch, which is also an available video tutorial on their site. I like Gnomon’s videos a lot, the only thing is they are sped up so you may have to watch the video a few times to grasp some of the concepts.
Another site I am going to mention has several video tutorials on inking, however they are all for digital inking. Digitalarttutorials.com is a site owned by Brian Haberlin, owner of Haberlin Studios and formerly of Top Cow Productions under the Image banner. Brian is the co-creater of Witchblade and spent time working on Todd McFarlane’s character Spawn, among other titles he’s worked on. Brian is a master of digital production techniques and on his site I found 5 inking tutorials ranging from beginner to advanced. Many of the videos have free previews so you can see the quality of the instruction you will get. If you are moving into a digital workspace, these tutorials are definitely something you should look into.
As for instructional materials, that is all I have for today. I will offer up some inspirational materials for you though. When I was younger my favorite comic was The Savage Sword of Conan. This was a black and white magazine sized book. The artwork in those books is utterly fascinating. I would go so far as to say, any inking technique you can possible learn is in those books. Since they were not colored the inkers had to do a lot of work to create mood and texture and make the figures pop off the page. Work by artist such as Alfredo Alcala, Ernie Chan, Rudy Nebres and Tony DeZuniga is just breathtaking. I always felt like I had watched a movie when I got done reading an issue. If you come across any old SSoC’s at a con, pick them up and study the inking, you can learn a ton from those. If you can’t find them, Dark Horse reprinted all of them into collected editions which you can find online or in most comic shops. In April 2019 a Savage Sword of Conan Omnibus was released which has all 235 issues plus a few issues of Savage Tales.
A page from The Savage Sword of Conan
Another book I would recommend is Secret Teachings of a Comicbook Master: The Art of Alfredo Alcala. This book has a ton of amazing pen and ink work. Looking through the book makes you really appreciate the artistry and patience it takes to ink something with the amount of texture and detail Alfredo put in some of these drawings. While most comics today are not inked with this amount of detail due to being digitally colored, it is still a valid book for learning and inspiration.
That’s all I have for you this week. I am going to work on getting some videos up on this blog using some of the inking tools I talked about in my last post. Then I will have an article talking about “cheating” in comics. I see this discussed a lot and there is no real answer. I am going to try and break that down and make some sense of the argument. Stay tuned!
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What should I use to ink a drawing? What’s the best type of ink to use? Can I just us a Sharpie marker or a Bic pen? These are some of the questions I see daily on any one of the comic art facebook groups I belong to. Honestly, these are all legit questions. For anyone just getting started with inking the tool choices are many and can be confusing. If you watch Youtube, and who doesn’t these days, you can pull up hundreds of artist videos showing how to ink a drawing. If you notice the tools the artists are using, you’ll notice they are varied and might not all be what many of the “How to” books tell you are the “standard” tools for inking. While everyone has a favorite brush, pen or marker they like to use, there are some tools that are considered industry standard, but that is not to say those are the only tools you can use. Lets talk a bit about inking and then I’ll go over some of the tool types available to help get you started in the right direction.
First and foremost, what is “inking” exactly, isn’t it just tracing? In basic technical terms, yes, it is a form of tracing, but if Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy has taught us anything, inking is definitely not tracing! So what does happen when a drawing is inked? Well, the inker will take a pencilled comic page or drawing and reinterpret the pencillers lines using a diverse set of pen and ink techniques to enhance the drawing and give it depth by manipulating light and shade. This is not something that can be achieved by simply tracing. The inker must be able to interpret what the penciller is trying to achieve in the piece and create that feeling with ink. Typically the inker will trace over what the penciller has done as a guide. Then they will move around the page, isolating sections where spot blacks will go or where feathering or cross hatches will be. At times the inker may have to adjust the lighting scheme of the piece because the penciller may have pencilled something incorrectly in contrast to the light they indicated in the piece. In this regard, the person inking should be as good or better an artist as the person who pencilled the piece. A good inker can make bad pencils look great, conversely a bad inker can make great pencils look bad. Considering that the inked line is what will be printed, you want the inker to be top notch. As an example, Scott Williams has inked over Jims Lee’s work for years. Scott is an accomplished artist in his own right and knows exactly how to interpret what Jim puts on the page. His inking enhances the art without overpowering what Jim has pencilled. That ability is something that is honed with time and hours upon hours of study and practice. Since I mentioned Jim Lee, he is also a very accomplished inker in his own right. If you watch any of his videos on Twitch, you’ll see he does more of the drawing in ink then he does in pencil. He also uses a lot of different techniques, in particular, using tissues to create a cloud effect for his backgrounds. So now that we know a bit about what an inker does let’s talk about the tools.
Before the internet, trying to find out what comic artist’s used to draw was a bit of a chore unless you knew a comic artist. Back in the late 80’s early 90’s we had Wizard Magazine which came out monthly and would always have a small How-to section in the book featuring an artist in the industry. It was here I first learned about what an inkers tools were. Two tools were always mentioned consistently, a crowquill pen with a 102 mapping point and a Windsor Newton Series 7 no. 2 brush. Great, where do I find those! A quick trip to the art store solved that. So what are these anyway? Well, a crowquill pen is basically a plastic handle that you insert a steel nib in the top of. The steel nib, a 102, comes to a point but has a split in the middle. You dip this nib into a bottle of india ink. The ink fills up the slit in the nib and you can then ink with it. Though made of steel, the nib is flexible so that you can use varying pressure to make thick or thin lines.
Now the other tool, which is my favorite of the two and one which I think every artist should own is a brush. The most popular brush for comic inking that I always saw mentioned by pretty much every inker ever interviewed is the Windsor Newton Series 7 No. 2 brush. It is a natural sable hair brush, meaning the hairs are from a small mammal called a sable, or can also be from a weasel. Both are small animals that are similar to ferrets. The fine hair of the brush holds a good amount of ink and is capable of making the finest thin lines to very thick expressive lines. Also when you have to fill in large areas of black you can do that easily with this brush.
Other brushes in this category that are equally as good are the Raphael Kolinsky No. 2 and the Isabey 6222 No. 3. Both are equally as good as the Windsor Newton. These type of brushes vary in price depending on where you buy them. They may seem a bit pricey, but if you take care of the brushes they will last quite a long time.
One thing to keep in mind, inking with a brush requires a lot of patience and skill, so like the crowquill, you have to put in the time to study and practice your technique. Once you get the hang of it the brush will be your best friend!
Being we are in the year 2019, pen technology has come a long way. If using a traditional brush is not your thing you may want to try some of the brush pens that are on the market. The ones that you can buy today are amazing and can give you lines on par with sable hair brushes. Some brush pens literally have a brush at the tip tethered to a handle where you can place an ink cartridge. Other brush pens use soft flexible nibs that you vary the pressure on to give you beautiful thick to thin line work. The beauty of these pens is that you can get them fairly cheap, you don’t need bottles of ink, you can buy refillable cartridges in bulk packs and they come in various sizes and styles. For instance, once of my favorites is the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen. All the functionality of a brush in the small size of a pen with a cap. Easy to take with you and no bottle of ink required.
A similar type of pen to the Pocket Brush pen is the Pentel Fude Brush Pen. This pen has a similar brush tip to the Pocket Brush pen. The long handle is a softer plastic that you can squeeze to feed ink into the brush tip. These are similar to some degree to Sumi Brushes. Again, an excellent tool for spotting blacks or doing fine line work.
Next up we have brush tip pens, but these have flexible nibs as opposed to actual brush hair tips. There are several brands on the market each with their own feel and performance. I would encourage you to try out a bunch of them and see which ones you like the best. After all, the best tool for the job is the one that makes you feel comfortable using it. These area bit cheaper than the hair brush tipped pens and can be found online or at any art store. I will say that most of these seem to come out of Japan, so kudos to Japan for making really cool art tools! I guess we should thank the Manga artists as it seems that is the market in Japan that these pens are made for. Anyway, here are a few you may want to check out.
The Sakura Pigma Brush pen is a a nice option. The pen tip is capable of making nice thick and thin lines and the nib glides smoothly over the paper surface. You can find these in a Hobby Lobby for about $3-4. They do sell sets of 6 pens in various colors for about $10-12.
Also by Sakura are these medium and fine tip brush pens. These pens are fairly cheap in price but they perform great. The nibs are sturdy but flexible enough to allow nice line variation and control. The ink is nice and black so you can do some nice ink work with these. These are also great to take to a convention if you are a sketch artist, just buy a bunch of them and you’re all set.
These two pens are the Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens in hard and soft tip. I got these on a whim after some Manga artists were raving about these. Since I’m always open to trying new tools, I ordered these from Amazon and they came all the way from Japan. I have no idea what the packaging says since it’s in Japanese, but in English I think it means “These are really frikken cool pens!” Seriously, I like these a lot. They move smoothly across the paper surface and can make very fine lines to very thick lines. A lot of Manga artists are using them, so if that’s your style of art you may want to give these a try.
Both Copic and Prismacolor also have really good brush nib pens similar to the Sakura and Tombow pens. They are equally as good. Honestly, I would be hard pressed to pick one over the other. I like all of these brands but ultimately, you will have to find the tools that fit your budget and feel right when your using it. I know it’s tempting to order everything from Amazon, Blick or Jet Pens, but before you do, if you have an art store close to you, go there and look for these pens and see if they have a sample one out that you can try. If you like it, buy it, or check the price and then see if it’s cheaper online and get it there. Better to test drive the pens in a store then order online, hate them and have to return them.
The last group of pens I’ll talk about are technical pens. These pens were traditionally used in architecture, drafting and engineering drawings (until AutoCAD took over). They are ink pens with very fine tips ranging from .005 through 1.0 mm. You can buy them separately in the size you need or in sets. The sets sometimes also come with a brush pen and a chisel point pen as well. You might hear artist refer to these as “Microns” or “Rapidographs” which are two very popular brands of technical pens. Most of the pens sold now are disposable and can be gotten fairly cheaply. You can buy more expensive refillable ones as well. Most of these have somewhat flexible felt nibs capable of making nice accurate lines. Back in the early 90’s I had bought a set of technical pens with jewel tips for architecture school. They cost about $200 for a set of 5 pens and you had to use an electrostatic cleaner to keep them clean and gunk free. You really don’t have to do that nowadays. Technical pens are great for doing crisp even line work for things like backgrounds, buildings and other elements that require fine detail. You can do your figure work with these as well. Comicbook artist Todd Nauck comes to mind. If you’ve ever seen him draw on his Youtube channel, he will sometimes ink with technical pens. As I’ve said before, all of these tools require patience and practice to get good at them. If you want to be able to ink at the same level as a Todd Nauck, Jim Lee or Scott Williams, study their technique and see which tools give you line quality that you desire. It may take a combination of tools as opposed to just one. Have fun and go find out. While you’re finding out, check out some of these pens.
These are Copic Multiliners, they come is an A set and a B set. These technical pens are refillable and you can get replacement tips if they wear out or break. Plus they are made by Copic. Everyone knows that Copic makes the best markers and their pens are no slouch either. The fact that you can buy replacement tips, nibs and inks for their pens and markers make them an attractive piece of kit. These come in other sets with more sizes, this is just the one I have on hand.
Also by Copic is this set of Multiliner pens ranging from a .003 to a 1.0 and additional brush nibs pens. These come in a set and can be had online for about $20-$25 depending on where you get them. These are more disposable as opposed to the Multiliner SP pens that are refillable. The refillable pens sets cost around $50-80 depending on how many pens are in the set. Both sets of pens are good, reliable tools. You will definitely get a lot of use out of these or any technical pens you buy. Aside form Copics, as I’ve mentioned there are Pigma Microns and Rapidographs and these from Prismacolor that I like a lot as well.
Prismacolor Premier pens are another brand of technical pens that are popular. These are not refillable so once they die out you have to buy more. You can get sets like this or individual pens. This set also comes with the standard sizes .005 through 1.0 and a brush and chisel point nib. There is another set similar to this called Prismacolor Premier Illustration Marker Set for Manga which is geared toward manga/comic artists, but they are essentially the same type of pens, though the manga set may have a few different pens in addition.
So now that you know what type of tools you can buy to make awesome ink illustrations, what happens if you make a mistake? Or a big blob of ink falls off your crowquill onto the paper. Or, what if you want to make those cool rain lines or splatters that Jim Lee does on all of his drawings. Well, this is where your trusty brush comes in along with the aid of a bottle of Pro White.
Pro white is a paint like substance that can be used full strength or can be thinned out. If you make a mistake inking you can just paint over it with pro white to essentially erase the erroneous ink mark. In addition to masking out mistakes, you can use pro white to paint areas of white, flick some off the edge of a business card onto your drawing to make grungy splatter effects and use it to outline objects in the drawing to make them pop or separate. This is useful stuff so keep a few bottles on hand, you will need it!
For small areas that need correcting, or to make those awesome Jim Lee rain effects, you can’t go wrong with Pentel Presto Correction pens. Just gentle squeeze the body of the pen to feed the white correction fluid through the tip. These are pretty inexpensive and you can get them in most office supply stores like Staples, art stores, or you know, Amazon, the place of all things.
The Sakura Jelly Roll pen is good for making small precise corrections. These are also good for outlining figures to give them emphasis in an inked drawing. These are also great if you work on sketch cards as the tip is small enough to give you a line that isn’t overly thick for a small drawing on a card sized piece of stock. Another great option is the Uniball Signo White Pen. This is similar to the Jelly Roll and is a great all around pen for corrections or just adding some pop to your drawings.
The last piece of inking kit I want to show you is the Pentel Aquash Water Brush or Aquabrush for short. This is something you would use to do tonal work where you have grey tones in your ink drawings. The Aquash brush can be filled with water and used to thin out your ink to give a nice inkwash look. You can also use this with watercolor pencils, or straight up watercolor paint. At the East Coast Comic Con here in NJ I watched artist Simon Bisley use one of these to do all of his inked convention sketches. I had him do a Lobo illustration for me and he used the Aquash as a regular inking brush, dipping it into an ink bottle and going to town. So although it’s meant to be filled with water you can use it as a regular brush as well.
I hope this article has helped clear up some of the confusion about inking and what tools to use. What I’ve presented is a good basic overview of the tools available. Keep in mind that new products come out all of the time, so try out different tools and see which ones you gravitate towards. Always keep in mind, at the end of the day, these are just tools, it is your talent and dedication to the craft that will make you a better inker, not the tool.
In my next post, I’m going to continue my article from a few months ago (yes, I dropped the ball) on the best how to books for comics. It will focus on a few books for inking comics. I going to try doing a post of videos to show some inking demonstrations with some of the tools mentioned here, so be on the lookout.
