#inkers

[ungoliantschilde]

Al Williamson

Pencils by (from the top) John Buscema, Rick Leonardi, John Romita, Jr., Arthur Adams, Jack Kirby, Lee Weeks, Joe Quesada, Jack Kirby, Al Williamson, and Curt-motherfucking-Swan.

Modern comic book artwork is primarily done on apps and tablets. Older artists draw on paper, but the younger generation has figured out that turning in a finished page digitally is a lot cheaper (and therefore more profitable for the publishers). Inkers are, frankly, a relic of an older era of the art form. John Buscema’s great gift to comics was not the stuff that he had published as the lead penciler. His legacy is “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way”, and the laundry list of Inkers that worked with him on Savage Sword. He taught those guys how to draw comics, and most of them went on to have storied careers in comics. Bill Sienkiewicz, Bob McLeod, Pablo Marcos, Tony DeZuniga, and more. All of them started as INKERS.

Now, what does this have to do with Al Williamson?

Al was a penciler for EC Comics. Plotting and storytelling, not finishing. Al had a number of finishers, but the one that did the best for himself? His name was Frank Frazetta.

FRAZETTA WAS AL WILLIAMSON’S STUDENT.

End of Al Williamson’s career. He doesn’t want to plot comics anymore. He wants to finish and get his page rates. He does a few prestige titles. He adapted Blade Runner as the lead artist, with multiple inkers. He did Star Wars for George Lucas, with multiple inkers. But the bulk of Al Williamson’s later career was as an Inker. Finishing for younger talent.

And his trademark as an inker is unmistakeable because he’s almost unique in comics history. Al’s trademark was making the penciler look like the star. He never dominated or “corrected” anybody’s line work. Al’s job was to make the young talent pop. And he was as good at inking legends like John Buscema, Jack Kirby, or Curt Swan as he was at making young talent like Quesada, Lee Weeks, JRJR, or Arthur Adams look as good as they should.

That’s why he’s the best inker in comics history.

[tootern2345]

Animation has it’s share of many, many uncredited artists/animators. Especially those that weren’t key men (story, layout, background, animation, etc). One of them, Michael “Mike” Balukas, was deaf and while working at Disney. He had his own method to combat the problem of not hearing the word, “earthquake!” Which was stacking pencil stubs on the top of his desk, in which the later Disney animators would “prank” him after that. He is seen in a 1928 Harrison-Gould staff photo (in the far left) and in this 1930-1931 Fleischer Studios photo, an inker for H-G and I presume that or an inbetweener at Flesicher and Disney.

He was born in 1906 in Pennsylvania and died somewhere else in 1992 and his mother came from Lithuania and was more than likely raised Catholic.

The 1940 census lists him as living with his mother, Anna. And his 5 brothers and 2 sisters in Brooklyn, New York so it’s safe to say that he left the industry sometime after the 1930’s.

Sources: https://www.ancestry.com/1940-census/usa/New-York/Michael-Balukas_99fk0 http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/harrison-and-gould-krazy-kat-crew-circa.html https://www.athensnews.com/opinion/columns/wise_up/wise-up-11-30-09/article_f86fc725-db2c-5b52-bca0-bb8fdc72616f.html

[comicsmithy]

I was sad to wake up this morning to the news of John Romita’s passing. By all accounts, he was a gentleman as well as a talent.

When I was tiny, I spent an entire good-report-card-reward-worth of money on a single vintage Spider-Man comic-book. I’m not sure I noticed John Romita’s signature on the cover but you bet I knew his name. Coming from the world of romance comics, he brought a new beauty to the book when he joined it in 1966 and, despite his own fear he would (in his words) “toothpaste smile everybody to death”, the sales went up. Because his work was smooth and gorgeous yet still dark and dramatic. Powerful covers and powerful visual storytelling.

My condolences to the Romita family.

[ironsaguaro]

@#*! Inkers! 5 Pencillers That Are SO GOOD They Don't Need Ink!

[bobwilliams-art]

I just added a new inking video to my YouTube. go take a look and make sure to subscribe so you never miss a new video

[skullsemi]

our asks have been answeared

now i just gotta find my pirate hat-

https://youtu.be/bIr2LK_65s0 ANYWAY WOOOHOOO!

me too- THIS IS CRAZY

Full comparison video by GameXplain on YouTube

[braincellwhatsthat]

gay people ☹️

kyokao sketch dump mostly to test brushes (dancing sketches inspired by sevazh's art)

[picory]

requested characters, though not all of them (sorry!). thanks for waiting!

[tinylongwing]

What if the sky falls in a fiery blend? Tell me how this will end

1/20

[oooocleo]

tattoo commission sketches and loose linework tests from today 🤲  my ffxiv oc odile on the left and sura on the right!

[ravenxbones]

i did this almost as quickly as humanly possible and my pen pressure is acting up because i need to replace the tip but i can never resist a good funpoison drawing. happy new year this is inspired by @spraypaintstainonawhitewall ‘s post here

[opal-owl-flight]

ITS GONNA BE SPLATFEST SOON!! FRIENDLY DAMN REMINDER BC I WAS BEING THRASHED WHILE I TRIED TO PRACTICE EARLIER.

[elric-art]

POV: You’re skin

[ursiday]

could i perhaps ask what brush(es) youve been using in your work recently? specifically for lineart; or if you use some kind of effect to get that specific look? totally cool if you cant say for whatever reason or dont wanna give it out, just thought i'd ask ^_^

I usually use the default photoshop soft round brush :-)

Theres not much of a line (no pun intended) between my sketches and lineart these days I usually start very rough and just keep redrawing over the last sketch on a new layer until I decide it's neat enough to color. Sometimes that only takes one or two passes but sometimes it takes more. After that I use a new layer on multiply with a different color to darken parts of the lines I want to emphasize and clip a lighter color over areas I want to make more faint

[soulubles]

More Scarabia x Splatoon! 🐙🦑

[iketatum]