Comicartistresourceblog is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
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.
There are a lot of other nib sizes you can get to ink with but the 102 was the nib of choice and to this day still is. Quill pens are used mostly in calligraphy but can easily be used for comics and cartooning. If you are going to use a quill pen you will need the other component which is the ink. As an example I am showing Dr. Martins Hi Carb Black Star ink, but there are several on the market such as Pelikan, Higgins Black Magic, Speedball Super Black India ink, Koh-I-Noor Black India Ink, Blick Black Cat and Daler Rowney Pro inks.
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.
Keep Drawing!
