The pail’s progress, pt 6

Well, here’s the final inked page. I still don’t like the way the first panel turned out, but at this point I’ll chalk it up to a learning curve since I’m attempting an inking style that’s somewhat new to me. Depending on how I feel about it once all four pages are complete, I may go back and redo it yet again.

I’m pretty happy with the way the rest of the page turned out. I wound up doing most of the outline drawing with a #3 brush and I did all the hatching/stippling with a Hunts 108 nib. This is the first time I’ve done any work that required using the quill so much, and I wound up enjoying it after I got used to it. You have to reload the nib with annoying frequency, and have to be very careful not to smudge the ink, since a quill lays down a lot of ink (relative to a brush) and it stays wet a lot longer.

I drew this page at 190% of final printed size, which is the size at which I usually work, but I think that if I do another story inked this way I’ll reduce that and work a lot closer to actual size–like maybe 135%–in order to be sure that the hatching detail doesn’t get lost in the reduction or reproduction steps. For consistency’s sake, though, I’ll do the rest of this story at 190% and hope for the best.

(Click for larger image)