Pen & Ink before the Inking

Old artwork that I've done a long time ago.  Before I even thought about going into the business of comics, I did some pen & ink art in a High School drawing class.  Of all the subjects that was thought in class, pen & ink was the hardest for me.  I couldn't erase like I did when I drew with a pencil.  I couldn't paint on top of mistakes like I did when I used oil colors, acrylics, or even charcoal.  One wrong flick of the quill and the ink will splatter everywhere and mess up the artwork.

One of the comic books I had laying around was Black Kiss, drawn by Howard Chaykin.  I drew the same image from one of the covers on a regular piece of paper then inked it using what I learned...   stippling, thin lines, and cross hatching.  Unlike what was done on the comic cover, I didn't spot any blacks or use any line weights.  All the black you see above were cross hatching.  Over and over again until it started to look black.  Very tedious and repetitive.  Thin lines for the hair because I wanted a light image as supposed to dark black hair.  When I wanted tones and shading, I stippled and stippled and stippled.  Another task which took quite some time.

One of these days, I should ink a comic like that.  Of course, it would have to be on a comic which allows me the time to do all of that.