Secrets to Good Inking
Inking, is so often the dreaded stage of the lettering process. We see it as the sweet little cherry on top of hours and hours of work. Finally adding those finishing touches to what might be the best thing we have ever made to date, sealing those lines on the page for ever, perfectly smooth lines with no bumps or the lumps.
All that is intimidating, it’s no wonder that I never used to ink my work.
Just like everything else we talk about when it comes to hand lettering, inking requires practice and patience to get better. There are a few rules that can be applied to help you achieve those silky smooth lines.
Unless you are actually a beast at drawing, you won’t be any good at inking the first time you do it.
The best way to start inking is a nice, quiet and peaceful environment. Ideally you want no interruptions, even the slightest one can cause you to slip and go outside of the lines.
Inking is about precision and requires you to be focused, relaxed and with no distractions.
Once you get started and are focused of the task at hand, you need to stay that way until you are done. Tell everyone in your house that you need silence, no interruptions — put your phone on airplane mode, put your computer on screen-save, pull apart your doorbell if you have to!
Okay, pulling apart your doorbell is extreme, but the importance of no distractions and no interruptions can’t be understated. You need to be focused and in the zone when you are inking, even the slightest noise can be enough to throw a line and sadly that can ruin the entire peace and hours of hard work.
Be comfortable
Sit somewhere you can get comfy and lean on something hard and sturdy. Your desk, thick books, the kitchen counter or even a tray sitting on your lap so long as it doesn’t move around while you are drawing. The chances are you’ll be sitting there for over an hour so you need to comfortable.
Inking is not a race
If you need to take a break and come back to it — do that. Inking is a slow steady process and if you need to stretch it out over a few days to get it right that’s awesome. The last things you want to do is get close to the end of inking, start rushing and make mistakes. The more time you take to make it right the better. If you feel yourself starting to lose focus, take break and come back.
The only obligation you have during this time is to be focus and to take your time.
Slow and steady
Your hand needs to comfortably sitting on the page, it shouldn’t be crammed in there with no room to move. Make sure you have plenty of room to spread out.
If you are worried about smudging the ink (which I always am) get a blank piece of paper (printers paper is fine) and keep that under your hand as you draw.
Don’t put your fingers to close to the nib of the pen, the closer they are the more restricted your movements can be, pull them back about 1–2cm.
I recommend drawing lines in one go as much as possible; sometimes this is a bit tricky, but try and get most of the shape in one go. This gives a more fluid look to your inking, whereas lots of little lines makes it look for jagged and sharp — which can be a really cool effect if that’s what you are going for.
Inking isn’t sketching. You aren’t trying to find the right line path during this stage; you should have already found it by now. You are simply tracing the shapes to bring it to life. Inking is the final stage on paper; it should be clear and smooth.
If you get half way though a line and you feel like your hand might fall off (it will at some stage) move your pen directions to the inside of the shape and spot. By moving it to the middle of the shape and stopping means that we can come back later on and fill it so no one can see it.
A common mistake a lot of people make (myself included) is to hold their breath. Don’t. I get it; you’re afraid to move even the littlest amount cause you might make a mistake. But what actually ends up happening is by holding your breath your heart rate raises which then makes your hand shaky for longer and takes your body longer to adjust.
This also happens with a low blood sugar, make sure you eat before inking. Weird tip, but its strangely important.
This is the golden rule to inking letters: pull curves and push straights.
The reason being that our wrist naturally curves inwards, use this to your advantage. It feels unnatural to push curves as it is going against what our wrist wants to do.
During the sketching phases don’t hesitate to turn the piece of paper, same with inking. Make it as easy for yourself as you can. If the line you are trying to draw is an uncomfortable distant for your hand, move the paper, rotate it, do whatever you need to do to be comfortable.
My personal choice of pen of choice is a Sakura Micron. They have a really nice ink flow that’s no too blotchy and think, this also goes well with the fact they have really nice black ink.
When outlining I stick with the super thin pens, .01 or the .02 and bump it up to the thicker ones for the fill, .08 or 1.0 If you are thinking of getting some inking pens then give the Microns a crack, they a re little more expensive then some of the others but the quality is so much better.
