This blog began in 1997 as a single news page called Nucelus. In 2005, during a long wait to move into a new house, I decided to learn some php and MySQL and write my own blogging system, which became inkyBlog and which now powers this, my own Webbledegook blog.
Thank you to my brother, Murray Ewing, for help with some of the more challenging aspects!
Inking isn't totally free of creativity or difficulty, there's plenty of that involved, but it is made enormously more fun for me thanks to the tool I use - the humble dip-pen. I find it such a pleasure to use. I feel as though there is a tradition and history I'm part of. Using a dip-pen is a craft - the very act of getting the ink yourself, of charging the nib directly from the inkwell, and then drawing - from brain to arm to hand to nib to ink to paper, resulting in a physical image, transferred kinetically straight from the source (me).
The first dip-pen I used, on the opening three pages of The Rainbow Orchid, was an Osmiroid Rolatip. Using it now it seems so basic and easy to use, but back then I struggled with its unpredictability, and soon moved to using Rapidographs (often doubling the line to inject some variation). After a few years I found the Rapidograph unsatisfying and I decided to give dip-pens another try. I bought a Hunt 107, struggled a bit, and then it seemed to click.
Towards the end of The Rainbow Orchid I started to find the 107 a little unsubtle for some of the stuff I wanted to do, and a couple of pages into The Secret of the Samurai I turned to the Hunt 102, a finer nib and a little more flexible. I had no problem with this nib, but got curious about the Tachikawas that seemed to be so readily available (when the Hunts weren't).
So next I tried the Maru and the G-nib. The G-nib is a very good manga pen, but not quite right for ligne claire. The Maru was pretty close to the 102, perhaps able to go a little finer - a tiny bit less flexible, but with a tad more character, I think. I seem to be favouring the Maru at the moment, though I'd like to try a few British nibs at some point, perhaps a Gillott or a Leonardt.
Whenever I mention dip-pens on my website, or at comics workshops (I'm nearly always asked what tools I use) I always get interest in them. I'm often asked what kind is best, how to use them and where you can get them. Sometimes people come back to me, frustrated that they've not been able to get to grips with it. It's not like a marker or a drawing pen - you can't just pop the lid off and go. It can take a little while to get used to, but if it's the right tool for you (and it may not be) then it will click, and you'll love it.
Because of this interest, a couple of days ago I decided to make a video about dip-pens. I ramble on about them for about 10 minutes (probably a bit too long, sorry) and then demonstrate three nibs in action. Just seeing the dip-pen work can erase a lot of the mystery. So, if you're interested, here's the video ...
4