Droids Custom 2-1B: Final inks and starting colors!

by Bill Cable
on 2022-12-21, 08:46:18

Last week I lamented my lack of knowledge on how to draw straight lines with a pen and nib. How does one use a ruler when the ink's just going to bleed under it and smear? And I was like "maybe I'll look it up on YouTube."

Well, I did that. And it turns out you use a beveled ruler. My whole life I wondered what reason there'd be for your ruler not to lie flat against the paper when you draw or cut. Turns out that's the reason. So I gave it a try.

And what do you know... that's pretty straight! So I went ahead and did the rest. The thing about it, though, is you gotta do it carefully in specific directions so you don't put your ruler on wet ink.

While I found inking with the ruler this way to be feasible, it was way more labor-intensive. I usually prime my nib on a Pots-It note to get the ink flowing before I start on the actual piece. Well, the act of positioning the nib on the ruler by the line takes a moment, and in that moment the ink tended to dry on the tip, so I couldn't get it flowing again. A lot of lines took 3 or 4 tries.

The other issue was controlling line weight. Once I finally did get ink flowing, it was often a much thicker line that I'd choose. In the image above you can see the grid on the floor is much heavier than the delicate inks on Kino and 2-1B. I figured that was something I could address in Photoshop, so I soldiered on and inked almost all the straight lines using a ruler.

Next step was to scan it and begin coloring! To fix the thick lines, I isolated the black lines of the characters in a distinct layer, then I selected all the straight lines and pared them down by a couple of pixels on each side. It worked pretty well.

I found the color blocking for this one has gone super fast! It's gonna be interesting to see how things go with almost everything being shades of white or gray. Fun, perhaps challenging times await!