kungfu sketch--inked

[dutchoven]

I made the horse bigger and slightly shorter, and made his chin less. I'm kind of sad that the inked version looks less lively than the sketch, though. =( I guess that it happens because there are less lines flying about, but if I could figure out a way to keep the sense of movement without spontaneously splattering ink all over the place, then

Comments

[redplasticglass]

You don't know if the characters are close to you or back in a distance, or worse, part of the furniture...

I haven't had a chance to reread the pages you had posted, but from what I remember, you didn't have such a problem (not one that was overly noticable, at any rate) Of course, it could just be your really excellent screentoning efforts that cover up the lines... I will agree that if it's something you really want to push, that yeah, in some places you can probably push it even further. The problem I find with manga styles is taht if you do people one way, and then do the background another-- somtimes it looks like manga characters pasted on top of a really detailed backdrop. There's a style and place for that, but it's not something I personally enjoy. *laugh* And I'm still working on that. Though, I do know what you mean by linewidth issues when it comes to readability.

One of my favorite artists, Taiyo Matsumoto, he inks _only_ with a single line width. For almost everything. While it works really well with what he does, I notice that sometimes he has to stick screentones in just so that there is some sort of way to tell the depth. In general, though, he manages to make it work. (whom I reccommend, by the way, if only to see a style that would be considered 'ugly' by many-- yet somehow manages to avoid being one of those truely deliberately ugly styles that you often get in the independent comic scene.)

[90009]

You know, the problem is that, for example in my case, I tend to use somewhat thin lines. Now, if I use a thin line for the characters in the front of the page, I have to use a thinner line for the bg, and microscopic lines for things far away. But they indeed look all as if they have the same width. I tried to put some remedy by adding details/black to thing close to the viewer and so on, and I thought it worked somehow.
Somebody suggested me to work with a brush, but alas, I can't use it ~_~
I guess I should try to find a workaround for this without enlarging the width of the lines - though it would be an advisable thing to do, I fear I'll end up drawing things a la Akira Toryiama, since my hand is very heavy *_*

he inks _only_ with a single line width.

Oh yup, many artists use to do so. I noticed it mostly in shojo artists, where the use of backgrounds is very sporadic.

[redplasticglass]

Actually.... you know how this may be remedied? ;P It's something I found when I went to art school and they forced me to work on paper the size of..well... me.

Work on bigger paper with thicker pens.

*laugh* dutchoven told me that you work on paper that's pretty close in size to regular typing paper? American comic standard is 11x17 with a drawing area of ...uh... 10x16, I think, so there's a bit more room. being able to work with thicker pens is wonderful on getting more linequality in. Though, this is also dependent on what the printers are capable of capturing.

If your're getting offset printed, then anything goes. However, if you're getting printed through the small-run printers, the methods and machinery used in those cases tend to be a little more restrictive.