background ink

I want to get better in backgrounds.

Some lines could be thinner. So the drawing would be clearer to read.

Heartaches

Ink WIP, original drawing from John K Heartaches



And for fun an ink of an other character sketch by John.




Harmke inked a drawing as well. She even colored it!

inkings reward

Harmke and I did some ink work for John recently. We got back from disney paris this day and found this package in the mail box!
This great art will get some nice place on the wall in our new home. (we are in the middle of moving to another home so we couldn't make a proper scan...)


We are now privleged to do all these things above! That makes live allot more fun!


Thanks John K and co!

lion

ink tricks tutorial

I wanted to make a little tutorial about digital inking because I sometimes got some questions. These are all tricks for digital inking that helps you but it isn't about how to make a good ink. You should check this piece Is a good line important? from John K about that. My tutorial are more a couple of tips that helps me allot when inking. For basics about inking you can go best to Brian's tutorial about inking or about brushes.

Multiply


I put the original drawing on a seperate layer. You can put it down on the layer you want to ink. But you also can put it on top and that will give you some advantages. If you put the drawing on top you need to select the drawing and go to transperancy>multiply (like in the screenshot above). You now can see trough the original drawing (see in the screen below). If you make the lines you ink with gray (or another color) you can still see the original lines on top of youre ink. I made a small example of that in the screenshot under.

* I don't always do this but sometimes it can help to check.

*the drawing is from Rune Bennicke

Point tool

You can select points with the point tool! Cool!


Pen tool

When you ink with the brush the lines youre ink not always are like how you want it to be, they sometimes get too smooth or you want to delete some part of the line.



If you click on the tearoff button like in the image above, you get this easy to use small window with all the pentools.

The convert anchor pen tool is great for making adjustments in the lines. Try it.


Convert tool in action. (above) You can make corners on smooth lines. Click with the convert tool on the handle.

You also should experiment with deleting points and adding points with the tools and look what kind of results you get.

Expand appearance.

When you use the brush you notice that it's just 1 line and you can only adjust that line. If you use expand you can chance the shape with more freedom.

See things better

Illu is a vector program, you can compare it with a 3D program. You see a preview, a calculation.

You can turn off the preview so you can see all the lines. You do that with the short key (command/alt + y).

You can use it to select stuff that's behind the drawing. Or if you want to select a line. You can select things more easy in this mode. And you can check if you didn't forget about lines that you can't see in preview.

A brush looks like this if you turn of the preview, that's why you need to expand appearance to adjust the outlines.

Is it usefull?

2 other things that can help with inking are "select the same" (you can use this to delete lines that you don't want to use anymore in one time!) and "expand" (you can make from 2 shapes 1 shape)

ink with brush

The first pose and character is from the Preston Blair book. It's not a good copy but I wasn't aiming for that this time. The second one is in the Preston Blair book a different character but the same pose. I try to slowly draw own desent poses.

I inked for the first time with a brush pen on paper. When I bought this pen I whas thinking first it was a bad buy but now it is getting better. Im still a bit messing around but I learn allot. The first one I inked very slowly and carefull and the second one a bit faster. I am gonna try to put each day a small amounth of time in inking with this pen and draw poses with characters from Preston Blair (or other good characters)

George getting insane!

UPDATE


Im making it myself hard, I didn't had to do the whole ink again. I just had to fix the eyes.

I also think I need to think more about construction when inking. Like Amir, he made construction guides in the eyes of george to help give depth in the eyes. Here.

UPDATE

*Still need to close the gaps

UPDATE

Gotta go for the bus! Tommorow I have more time.

UPDATE

I tried to be as critical as I could. Hmm the hair on the top of his head could be a bit thicker. (I only changed frame 7 in the middle)




Note: I didn' closed all the gaps yet. Are the iresses correct? Does he eats the table like in frame 5?


Man I really like those crazy expressions!

Woody!

UPDATE at the end/middle of the post

Woody is a great character!


I made some studies of the illustrations John K posted on his blog.


I wanted to do some own poses. A light table and thinner paper would be handy. I got stuck with his spout and I wen to classic cartoons to do some small research.


When seeing these pictures, I realized I need to push myself more. Try to do some crazy things. I have the feeling I hold myself back.



I really like this insane stuff! Man, I don't want to be in the shoes of that customer! I wish I had seen more of these cartoons (and old WB cartoons offcourse) when I whas a kid, it would have blown my mind, Im sure of it! They should put it more on tv these days, that would inspire allot of kids.


I tried to do some more wacky stuff. Somehow the rough sketches seems better then the clean ups. I don't have a light table so I needed to made them from reference.

Trying to learn some things about backgrounds... Need to learn allot.
Perspective, shapes etc.

george and kids

I really like these crazy faces. We don't see that very often anymore in animation.. I think the line thickness could be better on some points.

Exercise doodles:
The george drawings are study's from sketches from Rex Hackelberg. I based the girls loosly on Sody. And the 2 dog drawings from preston Blair, not really great copy's but I made them pretty fast. I wanted to try to make some own expresions of the dog, but I didn't got that far.

WB pitch ink

Maybe bugs theets could be a bit thicker, what do you think?

George show

*Oops forgot the iris and the extra drool for jimmy, wil fix that.

scene 2, 3 & 6

02+01

03+01

06+01 Jimmy

layers

put as much as logical on seperate layers.

slab n ernie

New ink. Maybe soon more.


A quick try/set up for a background. Wanna take more time for trying to make a background.

My girlfriend is just started with inking and I must say she does a great job at it. Go check it out.