Anyone have any tips on inking?

Question

For fellow artist out there, I was wondering if anyone had any good tips on inking whether it be personal hints, helpful sites, or a good book or two on the subject.

I've been drawing for a few years now, and have never really enjoyed inking to such a fine degree; however, I've come to the point where the only way to seriouly grow is to get my act together. I tend to use common Sakura Micron and sometimes Millennium. I've been debating whether to buy some white ink/white liquid to try and erase my crappy lines; but, once again---I am a newbie at inking.

Any tips at all would be very helpful! Thank you!

Oh, I forgot to add that I am willing to try my hand at digital inking though I do not own a tablet; regardless, I do own Paint Shop Pro.

Answer 1

I love the micron pens. If you're really serious you might want to invest in a rapidograph. It's like a micron but can be filled/refilled with any color/kind of ink. The downside is that rapidiographs cost about 30 bucks a pop.

As for inking in general, the trick is to not be scared. Don't worry about erasing your old lines- don't worry at all. Most of what you do isn't going to be displayed or put in your portfolio. I know it's frustrating to spend time on something that's not perfect, but I've heard it said that an artist will make 10,000 bad drawings before she makes one good one. An old art professor of mine took it one step further and said that I had better start getting the next 9,999 drawings out of the way. Early on my hand was shaky and I would freak out if I screwed up, but the more and more I created the better I got and the more the old stuff got pushed out of my portfolio. As I became less scared and less preocupied with doing things right I actually began to do things better than I thought possible.

Balls and practice are the two best things to have. White ink, however is really only useful for highlights. I've had lousy luck with it for erasing, but you might want to have some on hand in case you want to put a white glare on an already inked in pupil or something. It's not bad for little stuff like that.