Back from Heroes Convention and came home with one of these. 2016 The Most-Adaptable Inker Award. Thanks to all who voted me and for recognizing our craft in the comic book industry.
For more information about the Inkwell Awards, go to www.inkwellawards.com
Found out today that I'm nominated for an Inkwell Award under the catagory "Most Adaptable Award". Please vote for your favorites! Voting runs April 15-April 30.
My contribution to the SINNOTT CHALLENGE SPOTLIGHT on JIM LEE, where it'll be auctioned off by the Inkwell Awards.
Tools I've used are brushes, quills, tech pens and microns because I find each individual tool better at rendering certain textures more effectively. Inks I've used are Black Magic, Pelikan, Kohinoor and whatever is inside those microns. Different bottles of ink on ever page I ink on a daily basis. I find certain inks flow better with different tools. Finally some grey washes and a splash of watercolors.
Click here for more information about the Challenge Spotlight.
After I finished inking this piece in pen & Ink, I decided to paint some water colors over it. Rarely do I get to paint with watercolors, so this was a good exercise. I like to do more commission pieces like these where I get to ink and add watercolor to them.
Pencils: Adam Hughes
Inks and Water Colors: Walden Wong
Donated to the Big Wow Comic Fest's (April 18 & 19, 2015) Art Auction.
Step by step commission piece over Clayton Henry's pencils. Double page vertical splash.
Here's where I begin by using various tech pens and flex curves.
My next step is using rulers, templates, and ellipses.
Then I move onto faces and hands which I feel should always be precisely inked. Various tech pens, microns, quills and brushes. Starting with Silver Surfer's face.
Then Silver Surfers right hand.
then his left hand.
Then Galactus' face.
Then I'll start tapering lines
Here's where I start inking the edges of the black areas with a brush. Also used a quill and brush for single lines. Marking areas with an "X" to come back later after erasing.
Close up scan of Silver Surfer during this process...
And Galactus' face
After all the pencils are erased and areas spotted with blacks, it's pretty much done.
Here's another photo from a different angle.
But I'm not quite finished yet. Next step is adding more stuff on my own because there's a lot of empty space in the background that the penciller left blank.
Added a couple of planets and some black with stars in the background.
This planet was strategically placed just so I can keep the pencillers signature away from the black with stars and more ledgeable on the planet. I squeeze my signature right underneath.
Added Galactus' left shoulder pad right above his left ear. Then I went back and beefed up some line weights some more, to pop things forward. Finally re-spotted all the back areas again to give it a rich dark black.
And there you have it. Silver Surfer and Galactus!
Here's a commission piece where I've inked over Arthur Adams pencils. Why so much much blacks? Continue reading....
I was commission to inked over one of Arthur Adams pencilled artwork, which originally had Wolverine, Beast and Rogue on it. I believe this pencil art was one of the pieces Arthur had done years ago for the packaging label for Chef Boyardee. Not sure if it was used for the labels, but I do know it's an original finished pencil drawing from Arthur Adams that I got the pleasure of inking. The art collector sent me the original pencil art and asked me to ink all three of the characters and make the background all black. Also getting ride of the logo areas that was drawn in. Here's the original pencilled drawing.
This is what it originally looked like after I was done inking all three character with a black background.
Just when I was done with the inks above, I was asked to get rid of the Beast and Rogue... fill them in with blacks so the only character you'll see is only Wolverine. I'm not sure why he decided that route and it seemed like a waste to get rid of Beast and Rogue... this was tough! Covering up the beautiful artwork that Arthur Adams has pencilled in and my inks over them. But what the client wants, is what the client gets. So I made this video of me covering it up. In the video, I've used a disposable watercolor brush to fill in the blacks.
Here's a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle commission piece where I've inked over Mike Bowden's pencils. I've worked with Mike Bowden on World of Warcraft over at DC Comics and well as Avengers for Marvel. This was a treat to ink over his original pencils and have the characters at TMNT. How do you know which character is whom? For me, I look at which weapons they're holding, as I'm sure most of you use the same method to distinguish them apart. Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo.
When I was inking the commission piece above, it reminded of the last time I've inked a TMNT piece. Which was also the FIRST and only time I've inked them. It wasn't even a commission piece. I just inked it for myself and used it as a sample piece for my portfolio... before I started doing professional inking work. Back then, Jeff Matsuda gave me pencil copies of a cover he drew. This was the time when I was getting critiques and advice from established artist in the industry. He gave me copies of his pencils and I would ink over them for practice. Below is that inked piece.
It was okay because it got me work in the industry. This was one of the last pieces in my portfolio that got me work. Looking at this now, I cringe. I see so many mistakes and so many areas where I would ink differently if I was inking it today. It was nice to ink the turtles again. Maybe one of these days, I'll get to ink them on a book. That would be fun.
My inks over Julius Gopez's pencils. I've inked six pages in this issue. This time, Julius changed his pencilling style. When I got the files, I thought it was a different penciller. It's a little different because there's no blacks. Below are the pages.
