My big challenge in trying to draw clean lines has been finding a way to get the teensy-tiny fine-line details I need yet produce the variable-width outline that features in all the comics I adore (such as this Spirou example — please ignore the casual racism that seems to be a feature of Begian comics; what I like is the artwork).
The challenge is that I started cartooning very young, according to what I saw, so I’ve always drawn “at size”, where the received wisdom is that for commercial art you’re supposed to draw at 150% then scale it down. But I can’t do that now because all my sense of proportion and feeling is based on drawing at size.
I’ve tried every kind of marker, nib, and brush, trying to get the right look and feel, and this morning I finally stumbled upon a solution I love, using things I already had in my pen-roll (which I also made — here’s a bunch of sewing instructions for these).
First I “under-draw” with a mechanical pencil filled with non-reproduction blue leads.
Then I use a Platinum Carbon Desk Pen filled with Platinum Carbon Ink — a great combination, because the Carbon Pen is designed to never clog, despite the Carbon Ink being waterproof (which matters later when I colour my drawings with watercolour washes).
The Carbon Pen gives me a consistently strong fine line. Unlike all the felt-tip pens I’ve used through the years, its nib doesn’t smush no matter how hard I press. Funny, too, that this pen is cheap as chips, unlike all those expensive technical pens I’ve kept trying and hating.
There are only two problems with the Carbon Pen: 1) It doesn’t flex at all. This is good when I’m doing my fine detail work, but it means that my outlines look thin and weak. 2) It’s too long! Out of the box, it’s like one of those pens they have at bank counters on a chain with the vast cigarette-holder end. So I sawed mine off.
The Carbon Pen is in the middle here:
What I would normally do next is go back over the outside lines with my regular writing pen (the very pocketable Kaweco Lilliput with a better nib from a Tombow pen in it). This gives the characters more weight and makes them pop out from the background (on the rare occasion that I actually draw a background).
The problem with this, though, is that the line is — well, in Zen they talk about “first thoughts”, those fresh insights we have that we then quickly cover over with our socialised, conditioned, more acceptable responses. It’s like that with lines: the first line you draw has life and flow and intention to it; the second is tracing. It’s wiggly, it’s hesitant, and — horrors! — it can deviate from the first line, creating little gaps between them, as you can see in this drawing:
The two other pens above are ones I bought recently from Fountain Pen Revolution, a manufacturer in India. The Dilli is on the top, and with my order they sent me the Serwex (on the bottom) for free!
I’d read about the Dilli on another cartoonist’s blog, but its flex nib was too heavy for fine details (like eyes), so I put it aside, using it just to hand-written letters (because it gives cursive writing a lovely Spencerian thick-and-thin character). The Serwex, though — the free one! — proved to be my favourite pen for lettering comics.
(I also have a medium Lamy Vista for bold letters and a broad Lamy Nexx for really big letters, as well as a brush pen filled with Carbon ink for doing large, wiggly features like panel borders.)
What occurred to me this morning was to just do the fine details with the Carbon pen but leave the outlines alone, then do them with the Dilli’s flex nib.
[*Cue Hallelujah Chorus*]
If you look again at the first drawing, you can see (I think) how much cleaner and clearer the outlines are. I’ve been under-drawing anyway since my passion for cartooning has rekindled this past year (and gosh, does under-drawing improve the integrity of a figure), so with that guideline in place, it really doesn’t matter at what point I do the outlines.
So there you have it. If you persisted through all this, you’re either a drawing implement geek like me, or else a very patient person. Thank you!