I also got proper brush cleaner, and this is my poorman brush soaking unit:

Random find, Utada Hikaru reading Biomega.

Japanese “Manga Ink” (dunno if that’s a brand or what, that’s all it said), ~ $5.00 – $7.00 (1 oz)
Thick, dries fast — let it sit out [...]]]> I got two new inks to try, courtesy of my friend. Here’s short reviews of all the inks I tried with brush so far.

Japanese “Manga Ink” (dunno if that’s a brand or what, that’s all it said), ~ $5.00 – $7.00 (1 oz)
Thick, dries fast — let it sit out uncovered and chunks form — leaves brush sticky, doesn’t last long between dip, had to work off excessive ink to get desired stroke, but is a very dark, opaque black.

Dr Ph Martin, $1.94 (1oz)
Thinner than the previous, perhaps too much, making it hard to make fine lines, and requiring you to reload your brush more often. It dries very fast, stiffening the brush which means you can’t just use water to wash your brush when done.

Standford Design Higgins $2.22 (1oz)
More viscous than Ph Martin, allowing for finer lines and lasting longer between dips, but less opaque.

Standford Higgins Black Magic $2.14 (1oz)
Like a cross between Ph Martin and Design Higgins, with good viscosity and opacity.

Windsor & Newton Black India Ink ~ $5.00 – $7.00 (1oz)
Thin, good flows but doesn’t last long between dip.

Some of the unaltered scans, showing the different between each inks.

On the left is Black Magic Higgins, on the right is Windsor & Newton.

Design Higgins, a little less opaque, which really doesn’t matter after run it through magical photoshop.

Overall, I can’t decide if I like Design Higgins or Black Magic Higgins more. I’ll probably try using both for now till they run out, hopefully I’ll be able to make up my mind by then. ♥

I only recently started to use brush for inking. (pentel brushpen doesn’t count) I hadn’t thought of using one at all because I don’t know anyone who uses it. Basically, if you are doing manga, you are either using multiliner, dip pen, or do it digitally. I have used all of those options, and [...]]]>

I only recently started to use brush for inking. (pentel brushpen doesn’t count) I hadn’t thought of using one at all because I don’t know anyone who uses it. Basically, if you are doing manga, you are either using multiliner, dip pen, or do it digitally. I have used all of those options, and I wasn’t happy with any of them. Dip pen is by far my favorite, but it came with problems of its own. First is that the supply. I can only buy them online. Second is that each nib doesn’t last long, and you have to clean it fairly often, thus making it pretty cumbersome to use. Digital inking is good for fast and clean job, but my problem with it is that I can’t make it stop looking so… digital. It looked digital even when pro used it, so I guess it can’t be helped.

Recently though, I came to realize that I was trapped in ‘manga’ bubbles. A lot of what I believed and what I have done revolved around the idealistic image of ‘manga’ but not necessarily the real ‘manga’ itself. What happened last year changed me. It hit me like a brick in the face, and I realized that I just wanted to do comics, sequential art, graphic novel, whatever, and I can do it anyway I want, however I want, with whatever tools I want. Why did I limit myself with the prospect of manga? It’s just a catchword.

I started reading other kind of comics and liked some and hated some, which is perfectly normal when I came to think about it. I probably only like about 5% of all manga, but I started to appreciate other style of works beyond “manga” and started to try different things.

That’s when I started to try brush and ink.

You can look at my earlier attempts I posted on this blog. While they didn’t come out perfect or even good, I like them enough to pursue this course. I found out that the brush I use is crappy and there are inks better suited these kinds of projects. A quick browsing through dickblick and wiki introduced me to types of brushes than I have ever heard of or will ever remember. I honestly never knew that there were so many kinds or how they are all different. After reading them all, and quick round of googling, I decided to try Full belly round size 2 kolinsky sable with Higgins color ink as well as PH Martin. The brush just arrived today, and here’s result:

As you can see, it can produce much finer lines than anything I have ever used before. Even a school pen nib (the smallest and finest line of among the nibs) can not do that, and a huge plus is the fact that I don’t have to clean it so often and didn’t need to shake out excess ink as much as when I use my crappy synthetic hair brush or g-pen for that matter.

I’ll have to use it for real inking to test its durability and how well it will perform when it’s not new. I hope it lasts longer than a month or 30 pages which is how long my synthetic brush lasted.

As for inks, Higgins performed better than Dr. Ph Martin’s. Higgins is more ‘viscous’ (it doesn’t flow out of the tip so much thus making finer line and last longer between dip) but less opaque. Next time I’ll try the Higgins black magic to see if it’s any better.

By the way, I still like manga, if by manga you mean just comics, and it is still my passion and my inspiration. I just came to realize that I don’t have to carry any excess baggage that comes with the word itself.

As you can see: