now for the education part.... 
Hey guys, just thought I'd give back something to visitors by adding a tutorial of some sort 
since some of you out there may find yourselves incapable of making that oh-so-dangerous leap from 
your imagination to the paper.

Of course, rather than teach you how to draw from scratch like some ridiculous art class, why don't 
I just share with you a very simple shading technique for working with ink. Pencil users may also 
benefit from this, but smearing may still be the best route for you. Often people think that 
art requires expensive and specially made tools, this is a fallacy made up by so-called professionals 
to make up for lack of actual skill and confidence. For this tutorial, all you need is an everyday 
ordinary ballpoint pen. You can buy boxes of the things for less than a dollar depending on where you go. 


In fact, the only other tool you may want is some kind of straight-edge. It can be the edge of a playing 
card for all intents and purposes, so don't worry if you don't have a ruler lying about. I'm using the case 
for my mechanical pencils' lead.


The most important step, the one that's going to make your measly ballpoint ink drawing look like more than 
a measly ballpoint ink drawing is the patience, and above all, cleanliness of approach.


If you've seen Chasing Amy, you know the scene where Banky and Holden are hard at work putting together 
Bluntman & Chronic. Banky, the lowly tracer...er...inker, is rubbing the tip of his pen against his finger. 
This will prevent the spattering of ink drops that would ruin your otherwise perfect solid lines.It looks 
simple enough, and it is; simply use solid whites for whites (areas where light hits)...


...straight diagonal lines for grey areas (edges of shadows, soft light, etc.)...


...and cross-hatching for dark (full shadow) areas.


Now, here is the part where I sound like a complete hypocrite and tell you that if you really want to make 
respectable ink drawings, you should use a fine-point pen. once you've made a few drawings using just a plain 
ordinary ballpoint, working with the fine-point will be a cakewalk, and you'll find yourself working with far 
more confidence in your abilities.



DON'T BE PRETENTIOUS
...JUST BE CONFIDENT



(c)2005 Matsugawa J. Andrews