Inking with Brush

 

I recently took advantage of a discount sale and signed up to Skillshare Premium. The first course I was eager to learn from is the Ink Drawing class taught by Yuko Shimizu. 

Yuko specialises in gorgeous hand drawn ink illustrations which are published in numerous high profile magazines, book covers, posters and all sorts of products. Yuko offers two courses on Skillshare - this one was focused on inking by Brush

For my project, I created my interpretation of the Japanese comic Lone Wolf and Cub.

Both Skillshare and Domestika (see my previous posts) offer classes on a huge variety of visual arts. Skillshare differs from Domestika in that you have to sign up to the whole platform whereas you pay for courses individually on Domestika. 

There is a small amount of free content Skillshare, but to get to the best parts, you need an annual membership. Once you sign up, there are literally 1000's of tutorials. It is quite overwhelming at first, but after browsing around you soon get an idea of things you want to learn.

The quality of the content seems to vary - it seems anyone can submit content as long as they pass the minimum threshold for quality. That's not to say they aren't useful, but the video, narration and overall quality of many videos can seem rather amateur compared to Domestika.

Luckily, Skillshare also produces its own content - which generally focuses on well known professional artists, including Yuko.

Since this is my first Skillshare class, I'll write more about my experiences using the site on later reviews. For now, here's how I put together this artwork project based on Yuko's tutorials:-

1. Yuko beings her projects by drawing out her concept in sketch form. For my project, I sketched a version of Lone Wolf and Cub in Procreate on the iPad.

2. Following Yuko's tips, I printed out my sketch and placed it underneath my sheet of watercolour paper so that I could trace over it. Yuko only traces a loose outline of her sketch, so I did the same. The reason for this is to avoid inking over the pencil lines too closely, she thinks that makes the lines 'dead'. By inking fairly freehand, you maintain that sense of 'aliveness' in the lines.

3. I used basic watercolour paint brushes and Pebeo Indian ink. I've never painted with ink before so this was a new experience. I love how expressive the strokes can be and how much variety of lines you can make, from broad to thin strokes, from wet to dry brush. You can also add water for grey washes.

4. I scanned in the inked lineart and then digitally coloured it in Photoshop. I cut out the flames so that I could colour the inked lines but the remained I kept black.

5. Once coloured in I placed the artwork over a digital paper texture.

6. In this close up you can see where I have used halftone as texture. This is a technique Yuko uses in some of her pieces (although her course did not cover the digital colouring side of her work).