On your mark, get ready, get set, GOOOOO!!!

Every now and then, people ask me how long does it takes to ink a page. And I respond by saying it really depends on pencil details. I've inked as little as one page in three days because pencils were really intense. To as much as four pages a day on pencils that are simpler. On the average, a comfortable speed would be a day a page. Of course that really depends on deadlines... If you have it or if you don't. I've never really timed myself in the past. So just for kicks, I timed myself for this splash page which was used for Dark Reign Young Avengers #5. I broke it down by the hour to show my process. As usual, you can click on any image to expand it.

9:40am. First off, I get an High Resolution e-mail of the pencils from Mark Brooks, who pencilled this splash page. I download the file, clean it up a bit, convert it to blue line, and print it out on a full size printer which I can feel bristol boards into. First thing I do is ink the boarders.
10:40am. Here I inked both the heads. Faces are very important. In some case, I would use the magnifying glass that's on one of of my two drawing table swing arm lamps. I used the glass to magnify the faces on the bristol board while referring to the high resolution image of the same page on my computer screen blown up for clarity. Doing it this way, I can get a much more accurate line for the faces. Keep in mind, images pencilled more lightly and drawn smaller would just dissappear when printed in blue line. I like to do all that extra work so I can maintain all the lines from the pencils. 11:40am. Here I pull out my rulers and stencils to ink in all non organic lines. At the same time, I think about line weights. Using stencils and technical pens, you only get a dead flat line. To compensate, I would go back once or twice on certain lines to create perfect non organic lines with line weights. Line weights aren't always done just on the outside of the characters, I also ink them on the interior of the characters. Some of my comic friends think I'm crazy to do this because it takes so much more time than just free handing it in. I like to think I'm putting my best work out there so it's got to be as perfect as I can ink it.

12:40pm. I continue with the ruler work on the background as well as organic lines around and inside the body. The speed lines in the background, I would concentrate on which lines I need to make thicker and thinner. Organic lines, I would ink freehand.

1:40pm. I usually have some sort of pattern of inking. Sort of like working in an assembly line. Ink hear first, hands, spot blacks, and so forth. That usually saves me time from switching from one tool to another. With this splash page I'm inking, all that assembly line method goes out the door. I'm just inking the page to see how fast, or how slow, I can finish it. Which means I'm swapping inking tools constantly. Now, I go in there to spot some blacks as well as taper some of the lines going into the blacks. 2:40pm. I continue spotting the blacks and tapering all the areas of the characters with a brush. This process usually takes up most of the inking time because I'm concentrating on where the tip if the tapered line starts as well as where it'll end when the opposite end of the tip meets. I like both ends of tapered lines to be starting and ending in a pattern and not chaotically random out of whack.

2:41pm -3:45pm. I take a break. Eat lunch and look out the window at something far to adjust focus. It's always good to step away from your work to prevent eye strain. Some say you should look away and focus on something far every twenty minutes. I usually get into a zone and forget about doing that. Now, I get back to the inking table refreshed and recharged.

4:45pm. I finishing up inking both figures with a brush and quill. Some of the halos, I would ink around. Other times, I would use white ink and create that halo which separates objects from a black background. I usually wait until everything is done in black ink before I even think about using white ink for halos or effects. If I make a mistake, I'll pull out the white-out and correct it. Very rarely do I need to pull out the white out to fix corrections. Unless I sneeze in the process of drawing a line or something.

5:45pm. I work on the tapered speed line in the background. Only this time, I'm not using a brush to taper. I'm using a crow quill to whip these lines in because it needs to look non organic. I think of it this way... Non organic objects has to be perfectly straight, rounded, and arched. Organic objects has to be more natural and free flowing, more forgiving.

6:05 pm. At this point, I'm all finished with using the black ink. I double check to see if I'm missing any lines or blacks which needs to be spotted. Nope... All done. I take out my white ink, give it a shake to have a better mixture, and start using that. Since this is blue line, I would just take the white it and shake it up. Now if this was original pencils, I would usually double task. How? Check this out... I take an eraser with my right hand and hold it like how anyone would hold a eraser. Then I put the bottle of white ink in between my index and middle fingers and hold that above the eraser. While I'm erasing the pencils underneath my inks, I'm also shaking up the white it for a better mixture. Two birds with one stone! That's one of my time saving secrets for ya! All right, back to the finished page. Once the white ink is nicely mixed, I go in there and add more halos and effects where needed (like the scales on the outfit or the halo lines between armour pieces). After that, it's all done! Finito!

For this particular splash page, it took me a little over eight hours to complete.

I scan the inks onto photoshop at a resolution of 600 dpi full size. Once that's done, I upload the file to Marvel's FTP site. Then I take the same high resolution file, shrink it down to 100 dpi and save it as a jpeg file so I can e-mail it my editor to view. The below file is the actual jpeg that I used to send to my editor. Enjoy.