A few weeks ago @gianphanart and me took an inking course at AleskyArte (@aleskyarte). It went through Aug 14, Aug 16 and Aug 18, 4 hours each day.

It was my first time working seriously with ink. Here are our tools:

So he have:

• Calligraphy ink (upper-left part of the pic)
• Paint brushes of different sizes (upper part of the pic)
• Several nibs and its holders (upper-center part of the pic)
• Rapidographs (technical pens) of different sizes (right part of the pic)
• Fine markers (lower-center par of the pic)
• A correction fluid (lower part of the pic)
• A pencil and a kneaded eraser (center-left part of the pic)

We used opaline paper (coated paper).

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I scanned my works so you can see them, but take in mind that I resize them when editing the pictures so the references and the actual work are not in the same scale.

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First we tried the tools:

In the left column you can see a pattern repeated three times. I used for them rapidograph 0.5, rapidograph 0.1 and the HUNT N° 102 nib, in that order. The right-next pattern was made using a rapidograph 0.3. The three squares were made with fine point sharpie (upper left), fine 690 sharpie (upper right) and rapidograh 0.8 (lower). The rest was made trying to use the HUNT Ex-fine 512 nib (wasn't that easy for me).

American comic style

I didn't actually did the drawing, just the shading and inking. The original heads were clean like the right one in blue and I draw over it with the nibs and ink, following what is common to do in American comics. The upper heads are the reference.

Manga style (Japanese comic style)

This kind of shadowing is typical from Japanese comic style, making "blocks" of shadow, quite different from the American style. I had a set of references and I draw over clean faces to make the shadows. I used the rapidographs (technical pens) here.

European style

We had a lot of references here to use and I decided to draw this woman. Could you see the differences between the shadows on this style and the formers? There are indeed blocks of shadows but quite different from the Japanese ones. I used rapidograph 0.3 and the smallest of the paint brushes, and I did all the drawing process. Reference to the left.

More stuff

This is an arm in the American comic style. I did all the drawing process following the reference from the left, the result is on the right. I used both the nibs and rapidographs.

There were different models of the same athletic guy. In this one, more of the work was blocks of shadows. I used rapidographs. You can see the reference in the upper-left part, the clean model in the upper-right, part of the process in the lower-right part and the result in the lower-left part.

More of American style. I didn't do the drawing, just the shadowing and inking. The reference is on the left.

More of Manga style. I just worked on the model of the left, doing just the shadowing and inking, adding the clothes. The model looked like the one in the middle, but without clothing, just the body. The reference is on the left. I used rapidographs.

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This is all! I hope you like it. I did. Inking adds a lot to the drawing, the final result is way better, and it's a lot of fun to do!

And I got a certificate!