Best way to cover all bases?

Got questions? He's got answers!
Post Reply
Row
Posts: 54
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2005 6:09 am
Location: West Midlands, UK
Contact:

Best way to cover all bases?

Post by Row »

Hi Alan,

First off I'd like to say thank you to both you and Mark once again for taking time to chat and sign the issues of FF 'The End' I had in my grubby little hands at the Birmingham comic Show ( I've just about thawed out now... Damn it was cold!!)

It's also great to see the double page spreads on your site, talk about the stunning work that both you and Mark do.......Which leads me on to my question ( in a roundabout way).

I'm currently signed up to pencil 'The Wraith/Shadowflame' cross over issue that's part of the upcoming 'War of the indipendants' series that using characters from all over the indi scene ( including Erik Larson's Savage dragon etc) to raise awareness of indie characters and publishers.
This will only be the second time I've worked with an inker ( normally I ink my own work) and I'm wondering if there's any advice you ( or Robin etc) have that I can use or bear in mind to make the inkers life easier?

The main reason I ask is that I tend to pencil fairly tightly and indicate line weights in pencils themselves, and would like to be able to give the inker their chance to 'add' to the pages without leaving too much guess work and not to stiffle their input.

It's unfortunate that I don't have any contact details for the inker as I know the obvious thing to do would be to dicuss with him what he'd prefer to get the best result.

Any Ideas, suggestions or advice would be most welcome.

Thanks in advance.

All the best.

Row ( as in row, row, row the boat and not as in noise, lol).
When lady luck enters, get her a seat
Alan Davis
Creator
Posts: 472
Joined: Sat Aug 06, 2005 9:13 pm

Post by Alan Davis »

Hi Row

In my experience the partnership between penciller and inker takes time and a lot of work but most crucially it needs honest communication. Mark and I regularly critique each others work in an attempt to improve the imagery. This may well be helped by the fact we are friends because there isn’t any ego or one-upmanship between us. I have re-pencilled an image after Mark has spotted a problem or flaw and he is just as prepared to refine an inked image—which is usually only necessary because the tonal pencils didn’t translate into hard black and white.

I’d guess that the immediate success of any new penciller-inker partnership would be pure luck— although having worked with only a few inkers I don’t really have the experience to back that up.

I hope you are lucky, Row.

All the best

Alan
Row
Posts: 54
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2005 6:09 am
Location: West Midlands, UK
Contact:

Post by Row »

Cheers for the reply, Alan.

Looks like I'm going to be lucky.

I've been told by Frank Dirscherl that Jeff Austin will be inking the issue I'm due to pencil later this year ( the story and how it ties in are still being working on by Frank and Joe Martino and the project's not due for print till next year)
Having seen Jeff's work I know that he's a very talented artist in his own right, So that puts my mind at rest a fair bit.

Fingers crossed it will give me a chance to get a few pencil images drawn for Jeff to see what works for him and what doesn't in my pencils and the best way to resolve any problems before we start on the actual book, as I'm all for feedback to help improve what I do ( even if this means emailing pencils to Frank to pass to Jeff etc)

Many thanks.

All the best

Row
When lady luck enters, get her a seat
Darren Taylor
Posts: 32
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2005 2:42 pm
Location: Scotland
Contact:

Post by Darren Taylor »

Row, I've worked with Jeff before and found him to be both professional and good natured. His inking skills are excellent and remind me a -little- of Terry Austin. In-so-much as there is a good deal of well oiled style there.

The pieces he inked of mine, were -nothing- like I'd have inked them but there-in lies the attraction of teaming up with an inker. To be shown your work through anothers eyes, is like seeing your work laid bare! You learn a lot about your own art, if you are prepared to look;-)

It's the end product that's important, so long as neither the penciller or the inker are fighting against each other and working towards the same goal, (The best product that they can achieve between them), then variances in style can be an added boon*

* Some variances in style can, as Alan said, be ill-fitting.
Row
Posts: 54
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2005 6:09 am
Location: West Midlands, UK
Contact:

Post by Row »

Hi Darren,

I've always been impressed with Jeffs' inking, having seen some of the covers and pages he's inked via DW etc.

My goal is to learn something from everything I do and the people I have chance to work with, to convey the story better than I could before and to always improve upon my artwork.

I agree with both you and Alan, it's the end result that's the important thing, and if someone can improve upon my part of the job and show me where I went wrong or where to improve and how to do it better next time ...I'm all for it
( I always feel better when someone is picking my work apart than praising it, that's when you learn where you made your mistakes and how to avoid making those mistake again in the future).

Thanks for the reply.

All the best

Row.
When lady luck enters, get her a seat
Darren Taylor
Posts: 32
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2005 2:42 pm
Location: Scotland
Contact:

Post by Darren Taylor »

Row wrote:My goal is to learn something from everything I do and the people I have chance to work with, to convey the story better than I could before and to always improve upon my artwork.

Thanks for the reply.

All the best

Row.
As noble as that is, I don't look at an inkers work on my own and think primarily of the mistakes I could learn from. I take it as a transfer of vision! As with most artists, when you draw a thumbnail or plan out some rough idea, you have a fairly keen idea in your head how you see it finished.

If you are able to see it through to completion, great! However, for those occassions where you are employed soley to do breakdowns, conspets, pencils or some other stage of the artwork, you entrust the finalising of the image to the creatives, following you in the chain.

Where I feel the meat of the learning curve lies is in the differences between how -you- saw it and where it actually finished.

If where it finished was exceedingly bad, you can see plainly that this highlights areas of your work that you feel requires little change, if any, from your stand-point.

If the end result is -very- different from your vision and yet still appealing, that is a treasure trove of ideas that you can pour over, to see how and why it works and why you've never tried these styles, techniques yourself before!
Post Reply