Most of the time, I start and finish my art digitally, and almost always as vector art. Sometimes, to get a more organic look, I will start with a pencil sketch that I scan in and then render the vector-art over that. I have also been trying more recently to do more completely hand-drawn from start-to-finish works. All of these processes yield different looks to the final art.

One thing I had not done, prior to this weekend, was ink over the pencils of someone else. A conversation on the Digital Webbing forum inspired me to give it a go. In a case of fortunate timing, someone on the forum posted a nice high resolution scan of an Adam Hughes Vampirella sketch. I am a fan of Adam Hughes work, so this felt like a good thing to tackle as my first attempt at finishing the pencils of someone else.

Here is the original Adam Hughes sketch for comparison:

And here is my digitally finished + colored version:

Adam’s original sketch has some details and shading that I dropped out in my rendering. The digital inking is all vector art, which means I can scale and do other things fairly easily with this later if inspiration strikes. If you look closely you will see minor tweaks here and there between my final version and the original sketch. One thing that particularly bugged me was her left hand and the position of the fingers. It never looked completely right no matter what I did to it, but I settled on a position that didn’t drive me batty anymore… 😉

Famously, comic book inkers don’t always get the credit they deserve. Fortunately, thanks to the Internet, there are numerous examples out there of various inkers finishing the same penciled original where you can get a really good idea of just what each individual inker brings to the table. Also, some pencillers lay down more detail than others. Some teams of penciller + inker work better than others, as each compliments the other’s style in a more cooperative way. Part of what led me to this experiment was sometimes being dissatisfied with my inking of my own pencils. I wanted to see what it might look like mixing my instincts with someone else. Look for more of these collaborations as the mood strikes me.

Please let me know what you think, and remember, if you’d like an original commission by me or would like to hire me as an Illustrator, please use the Contact page and let me know as much as you can about your request.