Going back to the circus

I previously stated that one of my goals for this year is to do more inked art.

My first project will be to re-illustrate, in black on white, the art I recently painted for an emergent reader.

Here's the original line art....

It was never intended to be "finished art."

Here's the newly inked image...

If you compare the two you'll notice that I changed some things.

To start with I made the boy's nose much smaller.

I also sent him to the dentist to have that gap in his teeth fixed.

The result is a more normal/appealing appearance. 

I decided to change the title to avoid any © infringement issues.

Materials:

I used Speedball Super Black India Ink and Windsor & Newton #1 and#4 brushes to ink on some cheap bristol paper.

The brushes aren't the best for inking. The #1 brush wouldn't keep a nice point. The #4 worked alright.

The paper sucked up the ink and made it hard to get solid black coverage.

I manipulated the art in Adobe Photoshop after the art was done to get a solid uniform black.

As far as inking with a brush goes I like it. I have a lot of practicing to do to be able to get a nice smooth stroke though.

I like the way this turned out so I will do the rest of the pages with these materials.

At the same time I will be experimenting with ink pens/markers and other papers.

If anyone has any recommendations of materials that have worked well for them please let me know what they are and I will look into trying them out.