TWCL

[Uncle Greedy]

pencil, rapidograph, ink-brush.
As you see, all analog material, computer just for scanning and uploading.



The rapidograph is a Faber-Castell from the late 1970ies; I had it with other inherited pieces in a drawer and had never used it until recently; nobody had used it for at least 30 years before, and it works well.

[smbhax.com]

Whoa sweet C64. Are you using that as a keyboard on a Mac or PC somehow?

Also very cool technical pen! If it's a steel nib like other technical pens, how do you stop it from digging into the paper and pulling up tufts of fiber and so on? (I seem to have that problem with a Rapidograph. :|)

Is that a Pentel Color Brush? And is that little jar for ink, and if so, are you dipping the brush in it, or using it in the Goldfaber, or what?

Too many questions, sorry! :D
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[Uncle Greedy]

smbhax.com wrote:

Whoa sweet C64. Are you using that as a keyboard on a Mac or PC somehow? Also very cool technical pen! If it's a steel nib like other technical pens, how do you stop it from digging into the paper and pulling up tufts of fiber and so on? (I seem to have that problem with a Rapidograph. ) Is that a Pentel Color Brush? And is that little jar for ink, and if so, are you dipping the brush in it, or using it in the Goldfaber, or what? Too many questions, sorry!

One after one:
It is pentel, although it is rather old and quite torn by now.
The rapidograph (I had a Mars Staedler before which was good, but stopped working) is always digging a bit into the paper, similar like a classic steel-pen. Even a bit worse.
For the ink, I forgot I sometimes use a fountain-pen as well. I fill it with the ink.
And finally the computer, it is not a keyboard used on something; it is the complete computer, all parts, even hard-disc and power-supply-unit are inside. A friend build it some time ago for me, and for a while (maybe even now) it was the world fastest C64 on the world, using a 1,2 ghz cpu on a all-in-one itx-board.
The 1541 floppy-drive in the background contains the dvd-recorder. It drives outside if you press on the disc-insertion slot.

[smbhax.com]

Uncle Greedy wrote:

the world fastest C64 on the world, using a 1,2 ghz cpu on a all-in-one itx-board.

=ooooooo Wow! :D What do you do with all that POWER?

You know, I've been mulling over trying a fountain pen for drawing, too. May I ask which one you have and what ink you use?
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[Uncle Greedy]

smbhax.com wrote:

Uncle Greedy wrote: the world fastest C64 on the world, using a 1,2 ghz cpu on a all-in-one itx-board. =ooooooo Wow! What do you do with all that POWER? You know, I've been mulling over trying a fountain pen for drawing, too. May I ask which one you have and what ink you use?

It is my stanard-computer for some years now. I wanted enough power back then so that I don't have to upgrade to soon. Sometimes I think it could go faster, though. The friend who built it, Rod McBrown, did built some more fantastic things, but I don't want to go to much offtopic now.



Back to the pen: I use a rotring Art fountain for many years now, combined with a refillable cartrige i bought in the midnineties, I think. Not really expensive then, and it still works fine.

[ttallan]

smbhax.com wrote:

Also very cool technical pen! If it's a steel nib like other technical pens, how do you stop it from digging into the paper and pulling up tufts of fiber and so on? (I seem to have that problem with a Rapidograph. )

I use a tech pen for panel borders (I forgot to include it in the photo, posted earlier in the thread). I used to use them for all my lettering, too, until I switched to the Copic Multiliner. As long as you remember to hold the tech pens straight upright-- not at an angle-- it doesn't dig in to the paper. I have more of a problem with the crowquills and other dip-pen nibs digging into the paper, actually.

You can get a darker line with the ink in tech pens than you can with disposable markers, even the Copic, which is why I like them. But holding them upright gets a bit annoying, which is why I stopped using them for lettering.
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[smbhax.com]

Yeah that does sound a little awkward. I'll have to give it a shot though--holding it upright hadn't occurred to me! And yeah I get the digging something fierce with dip pens, blah.

It makes me wish I could see some actual inked pages from the big comic publishers and look for all the gouges. :P
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[Snotnarok]

I use a sumogrip pencil (mechanical) and Sakura pens photoshop or flash depending on if it's vector based or not and ...a pricy tablet.





I like regular tablets however I can't get my head around drawing on them flat out so making corrections on my drawings on PC I figured I'd get a screened tablet. Unfortunately it's extremely expensive and I'd only recommend it to you if you really struggle with normal tablets. I use the thing a lot, not just for comics but graphic design and such as well, but it's hard to recommend with the price tag unless you REALLY need it.
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[ewomack]

Gelly Roll 08 and a variety of Copic markers... they all have an inebriating smell...
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Ed Womack

[Eve Z.]

I'm using a Genius Easy Pen tablet that's been my friend for what?... 6 years?
It looks like this:


Adding Notepad. And Photoshop.
Never touched the paper with my current comic.
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[smbhax.com]

I was looking for a new black ink to use for my comic and ended up testing out fourteen black pigment inks. The three-part, extravagantly wordy write up starts here, and has fun charts like this



(I also tried Black Star Hicarb, but that arrived late and didn't make it into the charts.) Anyway the eventual winner was the ink ttallan recommended, Deleter Black 3. :)
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[ttallan]

smbhax, nice job! I did a similar ink test for myself a couple years ago, though with only about half the number of inks you had here. You also studied them much more thoroughly, with scanning tests and stuff. For me ink washes weren't an issue, though. Reading through all your testing, I'm surprised the Deleter 3 came out on top in the end! Some of the others sounded quite good.
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[smbhax.com]

Yeah I bet if more people did ink washes, there'd be a lot more non-yellowish black inks out there. =P I'm really glad you told me about Deleter 3! I was surprised too (and by how awful Deleter 4 is ;P).
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[smbhax.com]

I have struck again, sorry! This time it's mostly black, mostly waterproof pens getting the slightly-less-but-still-too-thorough treatment:




The wordy, sketchy part of it is over here.
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[Varethane]

....I kind of want to check out some of these other pens now. Probably not for use in Chirault (I'm pretty happy with my current material combination), but just to play around with. All that testing looks like fun!

Thanks for providing all this analysis It's really cool to read through, and gives me ideas for new things to spend my money on next time I'm in an art store.

(And also, thanks for the shoutout )
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