Bunch of Barbs

A while back when I started working with Lee Garbett on Batgirl, I did some sample inking.  Lee sent me a high resolution file of Barbara Gordon from Batgirl #11 we were working on.  Here's the drawing of Barbara...

 At the time, we were developing an inking style for his pencils.  Lee asked if I could ink Barbara as a test page.  I was happy to give it a whirl.  Not only was it fun, I wanted to challenge myself and decided to ink it in SIX completely different styles.  

 I  photoshopped the penciled piece and placed them next to each other all nicely on an 11x17 page to be printed out in blue line for inking.  Kinda giving it an Andy Warhol feel to the art, which made it an exciting task to complete.  I slapped ink over the images and numbered each image as follows...

#1 was inked with all brush in heavy thick to thins around the holding line.  Interior lines were inked with a brush going thin.

#2 was ink with all brush, only this time, I gave it a lighter softer touch throughout.

#3 The holding lines were inked with a brush giving it an angular edge to it.  Interiors were inked with a quill.  Crisper and angular.

#4 The holding lines were inked with a brush giving it a thick bold flat outline.  Interior lines were also brush work.

#5 was inked all with a quill.  At the same time, giving the whole image an angular feel, not to mention broken lines and lots of dots for the imagination to complete the lines.  Lots of flicking with the quill from thick to thin and back.

#6 was inked completely inked with microns in different tip sizes.

For as long as I have been inking, I can always use any combinations of brush, quill, microns, or any of the tools individually and make them look exactly like each of the Barbara's above.   After a while of working with the tools you have, you learn that each brush, quill, or pen can ink something with a certain look quickly and more efficiently.  Give me a black ball point pen and I can still ink it looking like a comic book page.  It'll just take twice or three times as long to complete.  Knowing what tools to use, just speed things up.

Anyhoo, after the Bunch of Barb exercise,  the both of us liked how option #2 turned out and we went that direction.  When it came time to ink over the original pencils, here's the result...

I'm off to Comic Con in Sunny Saaaaandy Eggo!  When I'm back, COMIC CON PICTURES!!!