Technical Tutorial 5: How to ink with GRAPH’IT Liners

By Antoine Dacheville, guest artist

Hello everyone. I’m going to show you, with this photo tutorial, how to ink an illustration whit GRAPH’IT Liners.

Inking is a technique known to all. It can be an essential point for the realization of your drawing. However, it is not just a question of going back over the lines you have already applied with a pencil. Inking allows you to highlight particular areas on your drawing and therefore requires a clean and efficient pencil.

So we’re going to start with a one-armed drawing, in the comic book/cartoon style.

 

Step 1

So I start by making a quick sketch of the arm, with a pencil, in order to position the different parts. Use a thin, light line to make it easy to erase. Feel free to delete the “excess” lines, as I was able to do below.

 

Step 2

Once my sketch has been placed, I can refine the external features of the arm and hands. This will give you a more accurate view of your drawing.

 

Step 3

Then I start to give volume to my external lines. This essential point allows you to bring a beginning of perspective to your drawing. So I deliberately make some features bigger.

 

Step 4 

It is time to place the muscles properly speaking. I opt for a well defined shade on the shoulder, biceps and triceps as well as the forearm. I also give reflection to the palm of the hand. Take your time in this step, as good shading will make it easier for you to draw the details afterwards.

 

Step 5

I can now draw the different details on each of the areas of the arm. In accordance with the comic/cartoon style, I adopt the technique of hatching to create a relief. I also draw some veins to fill in the areas without details. This gives the impression of a more complete technical drawing. Concerning the shoulder, I decide to draw the deltoids with thin crosses. The lines must be direct and dry and smaller and smaller (always keep this relief optic).

 

Step 6

It’s time to choose my GRAPH’IT liners. Among the multitude of choices, you might ask : how do I decide which mine size is best suited to my type of design? The answer is simple. Start from a base of three liners according to the following “rule”: the smaller your drawing is, the finer your choice of mine should be, and vice versa. Everything obviously depends on the style of your drawing. In my case, I chose to use the GRAPH’ITt liners 003, 0.05 and 0.8. So I have a thick, thin and ultra thin liner.

 

 

Step 7 

I start by inking the outer contour of my arm with the 0.8

 

Step 8

Then, using the 003 liner, I ink the shadows and thickest lines of my drawing.

A little tip: leave a few lines uninked to add details!

 

If you prefer to ink it all, you can always come back with a blank from the GRAPH’IT Shake range.

 

Step 9 

I now have to refine the lines by taking back the liner 0.2. I take this opportunity to ink additional elements, especially at the hand level (example: the phalanges).

 

Step 10

I then use the 0.05 liner to detail the shoulder, biceps, forearm and hand. A simple technique you can use is duplication. Simply add to your line at 0.05 another line up to about half of it with the 0.2 to give a slight fade. Here is the example in the photo:

 

 

You will obtain this: before

 

and after :

And that’s it, the arm is now finished with shaded areas and details.

 

So to sum up, inking is a point that can be essential and requires clean and efficient upstream pencil work. The different mine sizes of the GRAPH’IT Liners will allow you to have a wide choice and to accompany you on all types of drawings, whether comics, manga or realistic. Remember to take your time during these different steps. I hope this has been useful to you and I look forward to seeing you soon for a new tutorial with GRAPH’IT Markers!

 

To discover other works by the artist Antoine Dacheville:

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/artuniverse6/