Tools Of The Trade

I always enjoy "process" posts from other artists to see how they do what they do and what tools they use. It has been something that has helped me out a lot in the past so I thought I would do a short, quick one myself!

I am going to share with you the absolute essentials of what I use in my work. These few items pretty much allow me to do 90% of what I need to on any project. I am also sharing this with you because I myself discovered these specific tools by other artists who introduced me to them, and it save me a LOT of time sifting through the hundreds of pens, pencils and inking options that are out there.

So first of one of the greatest recommendations I ever received was what type of ink to use for illustrating pages. I am sure that there are a lot of other amazing inks that might work even better than this one, but this has been perfect for me and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. It is the Winsor and Newton Black Indian Ink. Now there are other Winsor and Newton Black Indian Inks out there, but it "Specifically has to be the one with the spider guy on it" as I was told at a talk given by Tyrell Cannon at the Chicago Comic Collective (or it was called something like that). As Tyrell demonstrated, this ink goes on evenly and solid with one stroke (instead of having to apply multiple layers or having a watery look to it).

It is also a sturdy ink, which means it dries quickly and once it is dry you can erase over it without the eraser lifting the ink off. This was pretty amazing when I tried it and made life much easier.

The nice thing is that since you don't have to use as much of it you actually save money in the long run. This ink runs about $6 or $7 for a 14ml bottle (or about a half an ounce). That isn't a lot but it goes a long way.

The next essential tool that I use, and this one I found from trial and error, is the Staedtler 2mm Mars lead holder (its a pencil).
For a long time I used a traditional sharpen down wood pencil along with a typical mechanical pencil. This became quite tedious, as the traditional pencils would have to be sharpened constantly and create a mess while the mechanical pencil's lead broke easily and only allowed for thin lines without the possibility of shading. Then I discovered these. These "lead holder" pencils are loaded with a solid piece of lead (which you can get varying colors and hardness of leads for) and is the perfect combination between a normal and mechanical pencil. The sharpener is a bit tricky at first, but once you get used to it you can get varying sharpness in the lead as you need. This thing has been a life saver and all I use when pencilling.

And here you can see the sharpener. As you can see there are two holes on each side which allow you to keep the lead at the appropriate length to sharpen it either thin and pointy, or a little thicker and more stubby. It also has a little foam piece to clean off the dust from your lead.

Next is the brush I use for inking, which is a Winsor and Newton Series 7 #0 Sable Hair brush. This one I discovered from watching @arseniclulluby 's tutorials and have never looked back. I can pretty much get every type of line I need, no matter how small, with this brush. Here you can see my workhorse brush and my backup.

I am..um.. lazy and don't clean my brushes very well. I mean I do, but not well. Here is a closeup so you can see the difference between my used brush and my barely used backup. The point of me saying this is that, even with my abuse to this brush, it works wonderfully. When it is loaded with ink (which it holds a lot of by the way) it still gives me solid, clean lines. I know it doesn't look like it would, but somehow those blown out bristles still give me a sharp clean line.

And lastly erasers! I use a variation of three. The Pentel hi-polymer eraser, the Tombow Mono Zero eraser, and the click pen style eraser (this is just a generic brand one, I think it is from Blick).
The Pentel eraser is very effective at removing lead. These you can pretty much get in an brand, just make sure it is the white ones. The black click eraser is what I use the most as it allows for detailed erasing of small areas. The Tombow eraser is used for extremely small details. The refills for these are expensive and don't get you very far, so I use this very sparingly. These erasers really are best if you are erasing back into charcoal or pencil drawings for very fine lines (such as hair), but I use them when working in small details to clean up hard to see, cluttered areas.

So those are the main tools I use. Please comment if you also have any recommendations or if you prefer tools other than these! I am always open to hearing of better or more useful options! I also want to share with you Tyrell Cannon's work and website. He is an incredible artist and I highly suggest you check out his work. His website is https://www.tyrellcannon.com/

Here are some examples of his work:

And just for the hell of it, because it has been a long winter here in Minnesota (but better than last year), here are some roses and a new plant we picked up today. Happy "finally almost fucking spring" everyone!

Cheers!