Whenever you finish a picture, you may say, "Hmm...that's cool, but it's missing something." You pour your heart and soul into the picture, but leave it with pencil. Then one day, it gets so smudged that you have no idea what the picture used to be, and your once majestic picture is reduced to a page full of smudges and clouds of gray.

But then, through the power of inking, you could save it.

Inking is a fairly simple process. It involves take a pen, and tracing it over whatever you have just drawn.

But there are mistakes artists can make when inking. For example, sometimes, in their rush to get a picture inked, artists may grab whatever ballpoint pen they find, and ink half the picture...only to find out that they used a blue pen.

I have nothing against blue pens, but sometimes, this can make more problems than they solve. Sometimes, scanners will not be able to detect the ink, and make the picture look strange. Sometimes this may be rectified through photoshop and re-inking in digital, but it just results in more work if it's a large image, or has many small details.

This can, and will, be avoided by checking any pen you use on a piece of scrap paper. This, however, has another use, as well. If the pen's point leaks ink, you can have time to stop and look for another pen that doesn't leak. This can prove disastrous when you're inking a picture.

Also, try to avoid going over areas you inked unless you have allowed the ink to dry. If you don't do that, it will smudge, and ruin your picture.

It may be difficult visualizing this problem, but it is one that can prove disastrous.

Hope everything turns out for the best!

-Wesley. J.
(XxsoulhunterxX; GundamX67)
http://xxsoulhunterxx.deviantart.com