Want to watch an artist do their thing? Well here is Dean Haspiel showing off his skills inking a panel from his upcoming work, "The Last Mortician". For more comic book lore go to thecomicarchive...
Is this the brushpen with the real sable tip? I read that Charles Burns uses 'em, too. I'd love to try one but they're like 60-80 dollars, aren't they? The Pentel pocket brush is good but I don't think it's responsive enough for "proper" work. I'd just used a W &N Series 7. It'd probably surprise people who don't ink with nibs or brushes how much time you actually spend dipping, wiping, cleaning your tools when inking so I suppose a decent brush pen saves a lot of time. I've heard good things about those Ackerman pens as well.
I'm not totally sure what the ones dean uses are but I see one jetpens that the Kuretake number 40 is listed as sable. I know the pentel pocket brush is synthetic but I really love those guys. Of course for an actual brush I've been digging the Scharff 3000 series.
The Comic Archive Yeah the Pentel pocket brushes are great. Never even heard of Scharff 3000! I've had a Series 7 for about 6 years which is still going strong but I mainly use nibs, the 102 and I really like the flexibility of the Hunt 108, too. I need to get back into brush inking, to be honest.
+vollsticks I love brush inking. You can do so much with it. I also got into some of the Japanese nibs. The maru is a nice stiff nib that is great for inking backgrounds. And a ton of people love the g nib because it can make thicker lines than the 102.
The Comic Archive Yeah, I've used both of those nibs, I mean they're SO well made but they're just far too stiff for my liking! That weird stiffness that the G nib has, I dunno, I really don't like the way the tines flare out but the nib is still really stiff...I don't like it. The maru points are a bit more to my liking but they don't have the flex of a Hunt 102. They may be shittily constructed but they're the points I'm happiest with. And I've tried most makes over the years. I haven't used any of the Hunt lettering nibs yet, though, and I know Schulz, Ernie Bushmiller and latterly Jim Woodring all used them for their actual line-work, I think Schulz used a C-6? I letter with Rapidographs at the moment, I don't mind 'em that much. Someone online turned me on to the fact that they take the ink I use to draw with really well--the FW Acrylic stuff (it's REALLY black and nicely matte, too)--so it's pretty handy 'cause the Koh-I-Noor/Rotring ink can look a bit grey. I love brush inking too but I like the constraints of using a nib. And the "grittiness" you can achieve.
