Another weird/messy doodle (no reference) resulting from trying to find the appropriate level-detail at which the half-tones should vanish for the female face. 

I should probably stop posting these half-baked cookies.

To continue with the experiment a bit more...this is the part that is the most elusive to me: INKING.

Converting those rendered half-tones from the pencil into something that is just lines of pure black is becoming (in the digital age) a lost art.

In the Renaissance, folks like Albrecht Dürer, made woodcuts of mind blowing-ly finely spaced lines to create book illustrations.

I think perhaps inking is the hardest skill of all to master.  Certainly it's the most painstakingly slow (if done well).  So many decisions to be made, and if done with real ink---so fatal the mistakes!  I struggle with it.

Of all the inkers of Mr. Byrne's work I've seen, I think his own hand was the best  (that FF cover of Invisible Woman on issue 245 always comes to mind for some reason).  That makes sense too---he understood the scene better than anyone.

Also, I think the inkers of today are at a disadvantage.  Folks in the mid 20th century had the advantage of watching black & white movies to see how others used lighting to make up for the lack of color.  How shadows can create drama, etc.

All in all, is does make sense that colorists---the painters on the new age---are replacing inkers...and to a certain extent becoming the primary artists as well.  Digital painting is so much easier as skill to pick up IMO.

@Joe:  I dig the last one.  Again, I'm not sure of the character, but the perspective and careful line work is great.

Also, one last supergirl image --- a mix of the pencils and inks (33% opaque overlay), just for fun.

which speaks a bit to why even black & white comics frequently add a gray-wash (or zip tone).

In this case, bad pencils + bad inking = something acceptable?

Oy! This drawing stuff -- it's a bunch of voodoo!

Steven, this is just my quick take on the inks for that drawing. Of course, I can't get all the nice subtleties of the pencils. I kind of comic-booked it up! And sorry I couldn't quite get a grasp on the hair in the original, I did my best.

Paul, what a wonderful gift!  I was pleasantly flabbergasted to see this.  I can safely say that you are the first person to have ever inked one of my drawings (besides me).  And what a transformation!  Smooth confident inks make such a difference.  What sort of tools are you using to get such fine detailed lines?  A side by side with everything lined up vertically and in scale (a silk purse from a sow's ear?) :

Thank you for taking the time to do that.  What fun!  Again, there are so many decisions to be made with inking---it's a herculean task.

@Rebecca: Crumb!  Another first in my life---but now that you've mention it, I see the resemblance in the overlay result.  Props to you for making that connection! It was serendipity, to be sure.  I doubt if I could consciously ape his style.

@Joe: That upward perspective is a tough one.  Did you construct a vertical vanishing point and break the figure into 3-point boxes?  That's how I'd have to tackle it (i.e. laboriously).

You all realize, it's a lot like feeding a stray cat.  Show it any kindness and it will keep coming back for more. :)

So on that note, here's another recent study.  For the sake of comic fandom, we'll call her "Moria MacTaggert" for lack of a better correlation.

It's actual the sketch that proceeded the Supergirl doodle, as I was trying to get a better handle on the structure of the female face.  I used this life-study sketch by David Malan, that I bumped into on-line, as a guide for the lighting and pose.  This one was choked fully for proportional missteps that I ultimately had to correct digitally.  The SG-doodle was intended to be a self-test to see if I'd absorbed any of the painful lessons.

Again, the reduction from half-tone shading to inks would baffle me in the extreme, and it's probable that many images just do not lend themselves to inking.  (This is quite likely one of those.)  I think that when an experienced artist like JB does the layout, he has already done the simplification step with his pencil.  After all, why waste time tonally rendering when you know most of that detail will be distilled away?  What we are seeing in ELSEWHEN is ink-like clarity in HB pencil, right?  What he does is masterful and amazing.

Don't you all feel that's the way things are heading in modern comics---less crafted line-work and more reliance on painting?  The skill to ink something beautifully is becoming a lost art.