Zen & the Art of Cartooning Maintenance

Pictures! We want to see pictures! :)

Things like this remind me of when I was working on my car...hands covered with grit, grime, and grease. It was, of course, summer so the bugs are out in force and something landed on my face.... Yep, a nice big mark on the side of my face that wouldn't wash off easily. :) How well I know your situation. ;)

Erimore.

Maybe you should have a separate picture group for all your experimental stuff. It could house all of your Japanese brush work and what-not. That way, we as the readers can attempt to give you constructive criticism. I'm also sure that you probably have some readers that use Japanese brushes religiously. They would probably help you out.

It also reminds me when I was helping my dad clean his motorcycle (I got stuck with cleaning the engine. If you ever have the joy of cleaning an old English Royal Enfield, just remember that the engine is covered in grease) and as I go to stand up, I wipe my hands off on my shirt. I swear, that shirt still has oil streaks on it.

I look forward to seeing your brush work! It's something I'm trying to get good at just now... very tricky to use indeed. Great for getting thick to thin linework though. Are the current strips drawn with just a pen?

That's hilarious. At least you did it in the comfort of your own studio. I did the same thing in the middle of class in college. I had one eyebrow darker than the other for quite a while.

Don't try to use bleach or acetone to get it off. Not a good idea (not speaking from experience here, just good old fashioned ohmygoshdontdothatness) :D

Another request for pictures!

Betcha can't do that with a Wacom.

I feel your pain--
Date: circa 1968
Place: Some junior high school class which I have--thankfully--blocked out of my memory
The Disastrous Occurance:
As I dutifully listened to the teacher, I pensively placed my brand-new, then-oh-so popular fountain pen in my mouth before taking down An Important Note. Unfortunately, I had already removed the cap of the pen and I received a mouthful of blue ink along with my inspired intake of breath on Understanding The Point!
From experience, I can assure you that there is practically nothing that will take permanent ink off one's tongue. And when you speak, yes, your tongue shows. I wouldn't say that I'm scarred from the event...but I'm definitely more careful around pens. And I don't use fountain pens any more!
But I'm not an artist and I agree with the others, I'm excited to see the results with the new brush.

Dave, you never fail to make me smile. : )

Pictures!!

As for the brush itself: I'm actually not sure what brand it is. A friend brought me the brush from Japan, and the only writing on it is in kanji or katakana. It's probably not available in local art stores for that reason alone.

Ah! I can post now! Thank you for the manual reset, mr. Kellett. Sorry to be such a bother.

(And in case my email got lost, thank you for the Glornak stickers. I'm sure I'll find some use for them when they arrive. If all else fails I can put one on the door to scare off the Jehova's Witnesses ...)

Anyway, what I wanted to say (and the reason I registered) was wether you know of Rice Boy [jho-tan.com]? It's a gorgeous, surreal adventure and Evan Dahm inks with a brush too - the link goes to his 'tutorial':

All of the drawings themselves are inked with some kind of waterproof india ink and a really skinny, round synthetic-hair brush. I really enjoy this kind of drawing. No matter how precise and perfect the pencils are, drawing with a brush is always a very spontaneous experience. Tiny changes in pressure make huge differences in line weight, and it's very hard to keep your hand still without pressing into the surface, like you would with a pen. This makes it much more effective to ink quickly, so that lines are smooth and fluid, if not always necessarily correct. You can see in a lot of my pages places where the line gets kind of squiggly as my hand shakes, or where lines are way too thick when I had too much ink or pressure or something. I love that! I love that you can see exactly where the artist's hand has been, and how quickly and with how much pressure. It's very much a Zen thing- worrying too much about how it will look will make it not look good at all. Becoming absorbed in the process teaches you technique and efficiency and makes the whole thing just more enjoyable. That's kind of my approach to this comic as a whole, for better or worse. I think brush inking is something like my church.