Sunday, October 21, 2007

Page 6, Inked

Well, after a short hiatus and a trip to SPX, I'm back in business (so to speak) and putting some ink on the page. In fact, there's kind of a lot of ink on this page. And yet, I don't think it's quite dark enough. When I look at the fields of black in my scan, there are little flecks of white all over the place. I need a new device for spotting blacks. Anyone have any recommendations? I'm trying not to use a Sharpie because they discolor over time.

Anyway, here's what happens on page 6.


I think that both of the requirements I got out of Ben Towle's constraints for these pages fit in pretty organically. It was fun to set up that end-of-the-page "reveal," in particular.

While I was inking this page, I started thinking of the junkmen as "The Chicken" and "The Egg." I wonder which one of them is named Mutt?

Anyway, let me know what you think; I'll probably ink p. 7 early next week, so please be sure to take a look at it and offer me any comments or suggestions you might have.

3 comments:

Mike said...

I like this a lot, Isaac--a good dark page. I'm also really keen to see what it will look like in color; the tier where Stepan magicks the glass could come alive in a cool way.

Do I see a misspelling in panel 3, where it looks like "Selayy" instead of "Selavy"? If so, that's an easy fix.

Finally, my hat's off to you for your ingenuity in suggesting a team of horses while showing as little horse as possible! Bravo!

Ben Towle said...

Nice page! Looks like you guys nailed all of the constraints nicely, and are moving the story ahead to boot.

As far as blacks go, I sometimes use an inked q-tip to lay down big areas of black. Maybe give that a try?

Isaac said...

I've tried (and enjoyed) the Q-Tip trick. It's great for big fields of black. My problem is those fields that are too big for a pen but too small for a Q-Tip. (That page was drawn smaller than a sheet of typing paper.) I've been using one of those Pitt brush-pens, but they aren't really dark enough.

I've got brushes and a water-soluble ink (Higgins Black Magic) that I use for linework, but it's not very dark, either, and fields of that stuff would probably wind up mottled. The ink that I use for nib pens (Higgins Eternal) is dark, but it's really gummy, and I'm pretty sure it would ruin a brush.

My guess is that I'm just going to have to buy a brush I can devote to spotting blacks.

Unless there's a better solution?