The Blue Pencil Process

As I mentioned in the last post, I'm really loving my new Non-Repro Blue mechanical pencil. I've avoided using blue pencils before because I could only find the old fashioned kind that you have to sharpen. As the lead gets more rounded, the drawings turn to mush and it's hard to tell construction lines from contours. Anyway, this mechanical pencils works great and retains a nice clean line.

If I'm working with an inker, I'll go over the page again with a B graphite pencil. If I'm going to ink it, I go straight to inks. The best part about the non photo blue is that it doesn't show up when you scan it in as greyscale. So there is no need to erase the pages after you ink them. This also means that you can use markers without worrying about the loss of sharpness that comes with erasing. I've been using Japanese Kuretake markers a lot lately, ever since Jason Howard told me about them. They''re way more fluid and pointed them the Micron Pigmas or PITT pens. Really though, what's better than a fresh #102 nib, eh?

I still do most of my inking with the Winsor & Newton series 7 #2 brush watered down Speedball Super Black ink. Can't beat it.

Here is a page from "The Vessel of Terror" that shows the blue pencil process. First, I scan in the page in 24 bit color:




A little hard on the eyes, especially on a computer monitor, so I convert it to greyscale and send it to Magnus, the writer, and Alex, the editor, for approval:



Once it's approved, I ink it. No worries about erasing the page or smudging the graphite with my hand, thanks to the non-repro blue.