The astute among you may have noticed that I've started uploading some fully inked pieces, and I've totally fallen for the results. The contrast is absolutely stunning, especially in-person, but the processes are all very new to me; I've not inked anything in well over a decade now, so I'm essentially learning everything from scratch.
That said, I'd like to describe the new processes I've come up with to make this sea change workable. Currently, I use 0.5mm fineliners, with a black sharpie reserved for bolder lines and large fills, which seem to be working rather well together. I also still sketch with graphite because I don't yet have the muscle memory or visualization/actualization skills to make a piece in one shot.
One rule I've held since I started uploading is that, once a piece is uploaded, it's finished, at which point the physical art will not be modified in any way. That right there would rule out uploading my sketches by default, but I am willing to make an exception for work-in-progress art. However, I'm also rather meticulous with the preservation of my art, which has given me a sort of aversion to directly overwriting my sketches with ink. Thankfully, I've managed to work around this.
Essentially what I do is digitize my art as normal, at which point I make a copy with heavily boosted contrast that I fit into a real-world-sized template. I then simply display that template on a spare computer monitor, tape a piece of paper directly on the thing, and trace it with a pencil. When I'm satisfied with that, I take the paper off of the monitor and ink it normally. I can also add minor details here, like the background of my most recent piece.
This all grants me a few benefits: for one, I get to keep my sketches, but it also gives me the liberty to make mistakes. Inking went a little rough? No big deal, just slap that monitor back on the desk and make another transfer, though I do still strive to get things right the first time. This also allows me to make my sketch at whichever size I'm comfortable with, then resize it to fit the template however I'd like. I can also use digital tools to massage the sketch a little if I see fit, like making a piece perfectly symmetrical.
There are some caveats, of course. For one, paper isn't actually flat. No shit, right? Not only is it not flat, but it never will be, since there's too much material, making it wavy. That makes the tracing step a lot harder than it would be with something like watercolor paper, which I may try out someday. Additionally, this means that I'm forced to get things more-or-less right in the sketch. Take my most recent piece for example: I got basically everything just right (with just a dash of digital symmetry, anyway)... except for the breasts. They were very awkward but I'd already inked them in, so I had to get clever. Instead of recreating the whole piece to fix a relatively small issue, I instead mocked up a fix directly on my template, traced it back out to paper, inked it, and meticulously cut it out with scissors to fit the real piece, finally sticking it on with clear tape. It's like a boob flipbook. This required a bit of clone stamping after digitization, but that's no sweat, and I personally think it turned out great, but boy would I love to never have to do that again.
Ultimately, the rest of the process remains similar; digitization is unchanged, as are color grading and uploading. Art remains art, and I have a blast experimenting to create new smut for y'all, to which I say cheers, and that I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoy making it. Oh, and I still intend to make my fair share of pure graphite pieces still, so don't be upset if those are your favorites.
