tonycliff

Chapter Three Inking: Off to a Good Start

Added 2023-01-12 20:22:01 +0000 UTC

This week,

Some surprises and triumphs from the first week of inking Chapter Three,
Medieval music and middle-eastern sounds, plus some tangential links to good things to listen to,
Expert swordfighting.

I put the same images in the "image viewer" above as are below, just in case you want to see them more easily.

The quick little fun things first, since technically I guess the inking images contain spoilers.

When I encounter something out there that touches on the whole Delilah Dirk thing, I like to share it.

I'm no expert on music, but I do like it a lot, and this first item touches on one of my favourite themes—that we're all more alike than we think. It's this video from musician Farya Faraji about how Medieval European singing "was markedly different from current Classical conservatory techniques, and resembled current Greek, Arabic, Bulgarian or Turkish forms of singing."

Come for his cute dog, stay for his notes on how different cultures add their own distinct "ornamentational flourishes" to vocal performance.

More music worth investigating:

I found that link on Metafilter, and in that thread someone mentions "traditional Irish sean nós singing," linking to this performance from singer Nell Ní Chróinín. It's beautiful, for sure, and it literally entranced my toddler.
Via CBC radio, discovered a 2013 recording by Canadian-Armenian singer Isabel Bayrakdarian &co. of Maurice Ravel's "Greek Songs," among other things. (Spotify link | AllMusic link )
Can't talk about medieval music without mentioning this recording which I absolutely will never stop listening to: Jordi Savall &co's Llibre Vermell de Montserrat. Love those hurdy-gurdies or whatever makes that sound. (Spotify link | YouTube link )

HARD PIVOT: sword fighting! Listen to an expert talk about it! Jill Bearup's YouTube channel has a playlist of SWORD FIGHT ANALYSIS. I watched the Princess Bride video, of course. Interesting to learn that actual sword fighting is as boring as I thought it might be.

OKAY! DRAWINGS:

It being a new year, this being a new chapter, I thought, "I should try out some of the cheapie brushes that I bought but have been sitting around going unused." What if they perform as nicely as the expensive Windsor & Newton Series 7 that I fell in love with during the inking of Chapter Two? I could save money, and they'd be easier to find.

Welp, the first cheapie brush was okay, I suppose. I thought, "whoof, I have forgotten a lot about inking since Chapter Two." I felt rusty. Then I tried my second cheapie brush and it was just… maybe "excruciating" is too dramatic a word, but hey, why not. It was excruciating.

So I thought, "let's go see how bad things are using my nice brush." Reader, I was shocked. Using the Series 7, it felt like no time had passed since Chapter Two. I was in a safe, familiar space. My strokes felt intentional and natural. (The panel above was the first inked with this brush).

I was shocked because I didn't think brushes could possibly feel that different. I'm a big proponent of "a poor craftsman blames his tools," but clearly it's some other, different kind of poor craftsman who fails to acknowledge that some tools are just made better than others. The Series 7 keeps a finer point, bends and flexes in a way that suits me very nicely, and it seems to hold more ink.

I just mail-ordered a handful more, expense be damned.

On a related note, I'm happy to report that the Pentel brush pen both A) still works and B) feels pretty good. (I used it for portions of the panel above.)

^ I liked this panel as a drawing, and I'm happy that I don't think I messed it up in inking. I was worried about the intertwining hands getting all jumbly and weird but I think it reads well and I'm happy with the expressions. As always with this project, I'm working to find the satisfying point between descriptive and legible on one hand and unfussy and "fluent" on the other.

^ Hello Katerina! Nice outfit.

^ Would you believe me if I told you that the panel in the top-right—the reaction from DD's mom—was the hardest part of this page? I redrew that mouth one hundred thousand times and it still looks a little off to me, I am Sisyphus. Otherwise, very happy with how this turned out.