f | How To INK FoR JAMES HARVEY Best PRACTICES , THEORIES AND How To NAVIOATE WoRKING FoR THIS QuixoTiC maniacWhich Dsaw on TV when I was 7 Wyearsl6l4, was the most formative oI i of my young artistic evelopment. it was like nothing Ta Ber seen before, As a kid I loved the Dikesplezers, skyscrapers, music, TMhubating bodies, the oute female lead, the unpredictable story structure and the main character who looked like me Now, Bove all that- but in addition I appreciate the fashion design, the synthesisof Akira Kurosawa and Stanley Kubrick, of eastern minimalism and western excess. 1 ‘apprecip.tc how incredibly confident Hig asé piece of first-time filmmaking. While Trontinue to experiment and find my voice as an artist, the bedrock lofimy style is still built on what Katsuhiro Otomo achieved in the 1980s. Twant fo push the language of comics forward but without forgetting the heeds ahd tastes of the young me, the (Ohewho wanted to be an artist in the first placeHere's what you get when you pull down an animation drawing in Akira to its base elements. It’s drawn in a very simple style. Lines only exist to hold the form, There’s no need for shading or lines to convey force or motion- this will all be communicated through colour, composition, and staging. This is usual for animation- but unlike American animation, which is built around the economy of form and line, the character is generously detailed ina manner usually reserved for comie books- details like pipe folds in the sleeves of his jacket, individual sorews in his gun, and 0 forth. Still, it remains totally readable and the eye is never overwhelmed by detail. This is essential for animation but it’s an important lesson for comios,, too. Herge (above) drew backgrounds with the same line weight and level of detail as the foregrounds. The only difference was that backgrounds were rendered in a constrained, realistic style while the main characters were subject to cartoonish exaggeration. Somehow, this contrast brought his pages to life. Luse a modified version of this approach. I have a background in animation, and I tend to think of the characters and back -ground elements as seperate creations, subject to their own rules. More about this on the next page.inking style is a synthesis of the values described on the previous page and the style popularized in the 90’s by people like Jeff Smith (Bone) and John Kricfalusi, in turn based on the inking seen in funny animal comics in the golden age of comics, and newspaper cartoons lke Pogo. Like those artists, Tink using a ‘brush pen in order to capture and accurately convey the life, energy and bouyancy seen in the pencils. ve ej My big “Innovation” is this: I make lines thinner or thicker depending on their relationship to the light source. Because this, seene is lit from above, the lines describing the top edge of Kaneda’s Jacket are thinner than the lines desoribing the underside. See the diagram below. Amey. ¥ a cee ste eae finoliner or a nib pen.T'm net (married to this technique, but it worksmentioned that it’s important to ink non-organic materials with a nib or fineliner and organic materials with a brush, but the truth is really this- that’s just what works for me, And of course, there are other approaches that work, too, Here’s a time when I inked the organic and non-organic materials with the same brush and guess what- the world didn’t end! In fact, if tumbir shares are any sort of useful metric, it’s one of the most, popular images I've ever put on the internet. (This is an old image, but here, you can hopefully se0 the principles I outlined on the previous pages coalescing into a whole.)v S OU SW \ XY WORN S \ KD NS. ~e os SAS BA MSs LRWOWWWSometimes I like to add black shadows to the character and backgrounds on t Ink layer. Ido this sparingly- 1t's usually when I'm going for a specifioally aramat: fe mood, nu'l notice that when T do this, I'm rarely likely to ad shadow to the char ‘actor's faco- these are cartoon charac: ters, and are “lit from within”, as the say in the movies, I believe that cartoon images are generally more iconic and readable when shadow is Kept from the character's face. Of course, there will be exceptions. I've never tried to create a scene in comics with the dramatic lighting of something like the Maltese Falcon, but if do, shad. Ing the face using ink will be a necessity. T'm pretty sure that if T do that, then the ‘areas to be shaded will be marked out in pencils, so you won’t have to guess what T'm going for. ‘This is from my ‘Tank Gin) tryout. Talways liked the jay I did this roller skate, Wotiee how the stripe partition line from black to wihen they go intoGOING FORWARD Hopefully by now I've established a shared knowledge base of what I'm looking for and why I’m looking for it. Thing 1s, I'm a.con- stantly growing artist. I've created work in a multitude of styles. I'm always looking to evolve and to broaden my palette. I think if all an inker does is follow my instructions to the letter, then our work will stop being surprising or interesting. My taste and sense of aesthetics are defined just as much by what T don’t like as what I do. Certain conventional design tropes in comic art, I see as dragons to be slain. I think comics can be far better than they are, and I try to make each piece of work I do manifesto for what I think this artform can be. Man! I hope that doesn’t sound too negative or pretentious, I'm just idealistic, is alll I'm going to show you a couple of experiments I did recently that hopefully underline the trends in comic books I'd like to avoid in my own work.JIM LEE is a tremendously talented artist! I'm envious of the incredible solidity all his drawings have. The style he perfected and popular~ ized was, for a period, the dominant house style for the whole of DC Comies, and it’s his style that most of the inkers I've been sent so far have been weaned on. Here's the thing- even though he draws brilliantly, I personally find his work to be over-rendered and tough to 100k at. So here’s what I did- overleaf, you'll see an experiment in which I took a page of Jim Lee's pencils and inked it myself, just to see what about his work I would keep and when I would throw out, and where I surprised myself. Below. dim draws so well, but this is alot tolook Below: If the pencils and inks weren't busy enough, at, And not in @ cool Geof Darrow way, where every the airbrushed digital colouring- technically tiny detail conveys new information, but ina way accomplished as it is- make it look an XBOX game. ‘where there’s too much noise and not enouga Tthink it's too much. Comics should try only to look, signal.There's about three seperate light sources, _like comies- embrace the aesthetic values innate to here- do we need them? themselves rather than looking like @ poor second, cousin to movies or videogames.Piretly, I took out all the orose hatching I could. Every line that 1 felt could be better eerved ty either pure black or nothing, Tem rendered the wuillty belt and machinery ina manner I've never done that before. Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing until 1 doit Laropped out the second light source from elsewhere in the eave, The Batcomputer is a visible Lignt cource within the pa ddramatio if we lat that be only lent source in the scene. (We oan all leaen a io from Frank Miller sm this respect. ) The detailing on the cave roof and the shading on Batman's body 1 aid vith easive brush trokee, That aort of thing is fun, sometimes! Finally, coloured the image in, VERY simple manner The inking on this page already gives us 20 ‘mueh visual information: let that speak for itself and the emotion @ scene will be communicated far more effectively. the inker hae alrouay told ue where the light fand shadow are, then the eolourist just has to...colour.Tread a review of We Are Robin #4- one of the fow nogative reviews- whore someone said, “this belongs on the wall of a gallery, not in a comte book!" This is probably the same guy who spent his whole life trying to convince his teachers, parents and co-workers that comics are an important artform and should be taken seriously. but when something that actually looks like art comes along, he balks. ‘Truths, the comio book is a gallery. Bvery page tsa blank canvas. We get to affect the zeitgeist and move the needle on popular culture, and reshape it in our image. Tt can't be understated how loud DG Comics’ megaphone is. Popular culture is still feeling the shockwaves from Frank Miller's work in the 1980's. It’s an incredible platform upon « which to set great works and have them be coen by many, P many people. (J juse mixed 7 seperate metaphors in 6 sentences, s0 you know I'm serious.) esBEEN S>AWNED BER (SAND PLANETS | THY =~LIKE TO OURTH HOST. HOST $4 ‘What else do I like, inking-wise? I grew up idolising Japanese and European comic artists, as well as American underground cartoonists like Robert Crumb and Daniel Clowes, but I've only lately started to look at popular mainstream cartoonists whose work I can learn from. In particular, [like ack Kirby and Mike MeMahon- especially the way Mike renders machinery and metal (above), ‘Here's a fun fact M tark, black and white drawings inspired Jamie Hewlett to design the tank in the Tank Girl movie to have lights above the tank's hubeaps so it, would look more like one of McMahon's drawings. No-one draws a hubcap like Mike “takes long drag of clove cigarette I'm really into what Frank Miller did on Sin City, too. And. there's a big long list of things I'm into, obviously, but not all Of it fits into the canon of influences for what I want to try to achieve in superhero comics, What I'm looking to do is create art that aynthesises all of the good things about superhero art and none of the bad, and bring in everything I learned through my training in animation and my study of fine art and film. THES : : S It what I said here chimes with the way you think and Ughts a fire under you, then man! Apply within. I want to know what you're into, too. Maybe we can create something incredible. ait eeTHE END ‘Mhanke very mueh for nesding. Ifyou like whet you just read, and you want to try out ae an inker, ezbail [email protected] with a sarple of Your work, and Il give you a page of my pencils to practice ‘on, ITyou have a rand who might be interested in doing i, pass ‘em a copy of this document 9, Sorey, but Lonly want people who've got prior ex perience working in comic books and can be relied upon to come up with the goods on sehedtule. 11 Wanted a capricious talent who noeds constant re ‘nding to get out ofbed and actually draw some thing, Pa ink t myseit Bit of sei depreosting humour, there, Ha ha, Your pal