Okay, welcome back to the Panic Zone formerly known as Megami Studios.  We're getting closer to launch (just a hair over a week now) and we've still got crab-buckets of stuff to do as well as writing these articles.  Yay.

It's times like ths that we could really use a drink.  Or twelve.  And just scream incomprehensibly. 

So, anyways, inking.  Right.   You can do inking two ways: traditional or digital.  

Traditional Inking

Traditional inking involves paper and ink.  For that you're going to want a good pen (and I'm not talking a BiC, either; you're going to want some of the following pens.  Although we're going to refer to them as discrete pens, bear in mind that you can get a modular barrel that uses different nibs.

• G-pens are the standard working pen.  The nib is very elastic, allowing the artist to interchange thick and thin lines on the fly.  
• Kabura or Saji pens, on the other hand, is much firmer and thus causes a milder, less variable line.  This is the one to use for a pretty steady, unvariated line.
• Crow quill pens (also known as mapping or maru pens) is the smallest of the pens.  Its primary purpose is for thinner lines, such as hair or circuitry.  Note that while modular pens can accept crow quill nibs, some brands require an entirely different barrel for the nib due to its size.

The most recommended pens are made by DELETER Ltd. of Japan, though they are often difficult to obtain in the US.  Two other brands, Sakura and Tombow, also offer good pens (and you can find either in most art supply stores); lastly, Ayne uses a Japanese brand called Tanaka and while those are not often in supply stores, most specialty stationary stores (and plenty of stores in Japantowns/Little Tokyos) do carry them.

Inks are fairly common.  DELETER inks tend to be the gold standard here, and unlike the pens, can be found in most art supply stores.  However, Ayne prefers a British brand, Higgins inks; they tend to hold longer than DELETER's, though a bit more care has to be taken when erasing the pencil lines.

Paper I won't go into, since most of it is interchangable.  While we do have dedicated manga paper here, we mainly use standard 8×11.5 bond (aka printer paper) and a careful enough artist can work with that.  However, we use it for a different reason, which is….

Digital Inking

Digital inking takes three critical things (okay, well four, if you count the pencil work you did): a good scanner, a good tablet and inking software.  Let me rephrase that: a good scanner, a good tablet and inking software.  All three are vital.  All three are necessary.  And it's mixing a good drink or crafting decent explosives (not that I would know that last one works….): missing one part of this triumverate means you're going to be in a world of hurt.  Seriously.

So what makes them good?  Glad you asked.

• A good scanner doesn't have to be a particular brand (for example, we have an HP ScanJet 4670, which is several years old and due to be replaced by something not HP because…well, have you been paying attention to the news lately?), but it does have to have a damn good dpi, "damn good" being defined as at least capable of pumping out 600×600 (again, our ancient POS puts out a minimum of 1440×1440).  Why's that?  Because for clean and crisp images onscreen, you need at least 72 to 125dpi, but for print, you'll need at least 600-plus.  This is a case where bigger is definitely better, but fortunately as of this writing most scanners put out an average of 2400×2400.  Oh, and stay away from the scanners in all-in-ones.  Fax machines work on an opposite principle, since they prioritize the digitization of data, so the scanners there are meant more for transport than clarity.  Translation: they're not ideal.
• A good tablet, again, does not mean the top-of-the-line latest Wacom Cintiq, though those are nice.  Anything that will get you at least 1024dpi of pen-weight pressure (or just 1024dpi for short) works.  Ayne prefers tablets made by Taiwanese maker P-Active over Wacom (mainly because of stylus weight); another artist I know prefers Adesso tablets becasue he prefers the tablet area to that of Wacom's.  Essentially, Wacom is not the final say here, but since it's hard to get anything other than those here in the US unless you order online, you get what you can.  My recommendation is to find one you're comfortable with and if it puts out at least 1024, use that.
• For inking software, however, your choices are limited.  Sorry folks, Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Expressions Design, Corel Draw and the rest DO NOTqualify as good inking software.  The reason for this is that nearly all vector software is based on a (at-minimum) 4-bit grayscale method.  Which means the line, as you get closer, becomes antialiased and thuse much harder to work with when printing.
  However, there are two programs that work in 2-bit monochromatic, meaning they only use two bits (black and white), making for no antialiasing needed and sharp for printing.  The first of these is DELETER Comicworks, which is on its 4th edition (Comicworks NEO), an…Oh, who am I kidding?  DELETER, though top dog in traditional inking, is a complete and utter joke when it comes to digital work.  Though Comicworks has vastly improved over the years, that matters little to the US audience, where all there is, is the long-out-of-print ComicWorks 1.0, which is horribly designed, buggy, was outdated when it first came out, and if you can manage to snag a copy, places are still selling it for full retail price for a product that came out seven years ago.  Trust me: skip DELETER Comicworks at all costs.  Don't be like us; we learned the hard way and we still keep our copy of Comicworks around to scare apprentices during campfires at night. 
• Which means you really only have one choice.  Japanese company CelSys came out with a superior product called ComicStudio that for years, victims of the Comicworks Holocaust begged and pleaded to be saved from.  However, in a strange turn of events, CelSys did not release a version through their US subsidiary, instead partnering with graphics rendering company Curious Labs and manga folly torpedo company Tokoypop to come up with the English version.  This is the software we all know and love, known as Manga Studio.
  Manga Studio is great, says anyone who's used Comicworks.  If you haven't used it, trust us.  We – and just about everyone – uses Manga Studio; it's the defacto digital inking standard not just for manga, but now for comics and political cartoons as well. The lines are crisp and clear and translate well to printing.  Now, granted, Manga Studio isn't perfect; Curious Labs' parent company sold it (as well as the Manga Studio distro rights) to a new company called SmithMicro, who admittedly can't find their ass from a hole in the ground and have been abusing our little software hero.  However, hope springs eternal and Manga Studio marches on, still the standard for digital inking and a must buy.

Now, as to those who wanted actual help with inking, maybe we can talk Ayne into writing one of these articles someday.  But until then, you'll just have to deal with tomorrow's topic.  So there.  Nyah.

Tommorrow, Day 7 – One Week Left: Toning