Hello guys, here I am again posting another post about making manga(even though the truth is, these posts are more about me). Today, I will be talking about inks and how I dealt with them during those times that I still cannot afford them. Because let us be true here, inks are expensive! As a matter of fact, inks are one of the most rigged priced liquids in the world together with the spider and snake venoms that sell in really unbelievable prices.

Inking is a total different thing if you compare it with pencils. Ink is something like that has it's own life and it can be used in different ways depending on the medium you use if it is either on a brush, a dip pen, a technical pen or a disposable pen. Even just using a refillable rotring technical pen has a great difference if you compare it with a disposable uni pin or sakura micron pen.

First things first, one of my first struggles in learning manga at the start like what I said in my previous posts is knowing what I need and finding cheaper alternatives of what I need that I can afford that time.I remember that time when I learned about sakura micron, I was in a Facebook group about art and I saw this traditional drawing in ink. I asked the author of the post of what she used on her drawing, luckily she replied right away. She told me that it was Uni pin.

Uni pin that time was below a dollar per pen, while today, it already costs 65 pesos per pen(around 1.33 dollars) thanks to inflation. Ofcourse being the bum I was that time, I had to assess the material for several factors. One, is how many in actual do I need these kind of pens and two is how long would my investment last.

These two factors are important to me because I am aware that I am at the very start of my journey in learning drawing and making manga. I should pick the cheapest materials that I can use in a long stretch of time. To cut it short, I didn't bought the Uni pin. I already knew that it's life is short(to me, atleast) and I need more than one point to be able to appreciate the medium as a noob.

I continued my research about inking by watching some youtube videos, during that time, the number of videos aren't as abundant like what we have today but still, luckily, I was able to get some information about inking. I learned that the traditional pros use either a set of dip pens or a brush for inking. I personally wanted to buy the dip pens because I can already see that it's the most practical choice among my options but unfortunately, there aren't any of those being sold here during that time.

I picked the brush. The brush, honestly isn't comfortable. I didn't personally liked the feel of the ink because the ink that i was using was so cheap that it's almost not black when used with a brush. Storing the brush is also another thing because I do not have the equipment to properly store it.

It took me several months before I was able to appreciate the medium, I didn't really liked it even after I was able to get my hands into my first fountain pen. Fountain pens are great and I wouldn't be talking that much about them here because I already did that on my past posts. I think, the my experience with the brush gave me the capability to compare the two mediums, even after I got into the position where I was able to get those unipins, the characteristics of inking with a brush is really one of a kind.

Inking with a brush has it's own appeal. Its the fastest inking medium, its unique and its one of the most expressive inking mediums I experienced among them all. But if you would ask me if where is the brush in my top list, I have to say that its in the last, not because its terrible but because I prefer something else over it.

The unipin or "pigma pen" in my personal jargon is the most convenient and most practical pen to use if you can afford it. Its clean, dries fast and its easy to use. The medium is so direct to the point that when you use one for the first time, you will appreciate it right away.

On the other hand, we have these technical pens(refillable pens) that are so expensive, so hard to use and are so needy cause these pens demands a lot of cleaning and maintenance just for it's life to get longer. I also discussed things about these pens that they are no longer relevant in our time and they have no real purpose anymore but just accessories. I even told them that rotring and staedler just still produces them because there are still these noobs/students that are too curious about them to buy them. Like, let's point out the things why I think that these pens shouldn't be produced anymore:

1 These pens are so hard to use that you wouldn't really appreciate using them, for God's sake, they scratch harder on paper than G-pen, saji pen and maru pen. Like, these 3 manga dip pens are understandable because they were designed and meant to be used on thick manuscript papers but these tech pens? I even tried them on vellum boards but the results are still terrible. The only thing that I can see them being used are for the backgrounds and the panels but still the cheap disposable Uni pin can do that job better.

2 They are so expensive and theres a lot of alternatives over it.

3 If you tell me that they are still used for technical drawings, well, you are wrong. In a professional setting, people nowadays just use cad. Why? Its faster, not prone to error and is convenient. Remember, in a professional setting like a construction firm, they do everything as fast and as professional as possible. And in today's time, doing it with cad and a printer looks more professional than doing it with a ruler and a tech pen. Keep on defending that shit with "if you're really good with it, the customer will appreciate the hand drawn technical drawings" shit. Okay, I will not deny it, I'm terrible at it but the thing is, its not only me who is terrible with the medium, why would you make people invest their time on mastering that unused medium rather than just learning the cad? Or for God's sake, just buy a wacom Intuos?

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Something Technical for you to Use

I used to think that using ball point pens are good for doing manuscripts. The thing with ballpens is, their inks are not good for mass production that when you photocopy them the photocopy machine doesn't copy the images that you draw nicely.

Another thing with ballpoint pens is they are not waterproof and thats a big thing with making manuscripts. Its the same case with gel point pens(those fancy pens that these girls love to use to write in their stationaries), gel pens aren't water proof.

Those are the only things that you have to keep in mind with looking for an ink. The ink should be black enough for the copier to copy it nicely and the ink should be waterproof when dry.

Everything Here in My Post are Mine!