This Week: Escoda Brushes
So, many of you will remember the post where I retracted my endorsement of Rosemary's brushes, after several readers who had purchased from her reported a precipitous drop in quality to the point of being unusable. You're better off buying the cheapest nylon brush rather than a bad sable brush, and with Japan making those insanely resilient and sharp pocket brush pens, a sable brush had better be good for the money you pay.

In that same post I actually did review an Escoda brush, which I'd totally forgotten about. I got it on my trip to SCAD Atlanta, liked it okay, and suggested it for people as a possible alternative if Raphael brushes weren't available. I haven't drawn with brushes for awhile, so I totally forgot about it.

My current workplace sells Escoda brushes, and they're specifically mentioned in our training video on brushes. The owner, Larry, who travels all over the world to meet his suppliers and see their factories, talked in the video about what makes a brush good and why some good brush companies have lost their way *cough Windsor and newton cough*. Basically, what it comes down to is time spent in a single location. Brush making takes years, even decades to learn, and making the kolinsky sable brushes is the hardest, requiring workers who've been brush makers for 20 years or more. If a brush company moves it's facilities, (W&N), and the brush makers don't or can't follow, their experience is lost, and therefore the quality. You do still see, every so often, a decent W&N brush, but the rarity of them leads me to conjecture it may be as little as one person making those elusive few. I imagine an old man, surrounded by fumbling whipper-snappers, weeping to himself as he places each of his perfect brushes on a conveyor belt alongside their splaying messes of expensive hair.

Larry chose Escoda because their factory has been in the same place since 1949, 18 years longer than Raphael, which seems to make some of the consistently better sable brushes these days. I tested 3 of the brushes in our store to decide what size I wanted to buy to test for Comic Tools, and all of them came to a sharp, single hair point. THAT was encouraging- I wanted this company to be consistent, not just good, if I was to recommend them to my readers. I selected a size 4 to test.
I love it. It's better than Rosemary's best brushes ever were. It has great snap, which I prefer to the well-formed, but to my hand mushy-feeling Raphael brushes. (I don't want to seem like I don't like Raphael brushes, By the way. Habibi was drawn with one for chrissake. I just don't prefer the feel of them.) I compared it to my trusty W&N #3 brush, and in doing so a sense memory came back to me. It doesn't feel like my W&N brush does now (which I still prefer), but it does feel like what my W&N felt like new. I could feel the Escoda pushing my hand into making the sorts of movements that led to my inking style when I drew my first book with my then brand-new W&N. How's the tip? That's a hair from my head next to those lines: Can it do drybrushing well? Yup:
Wispy lines? Uh huh:
Fiddly things like eyes and faces? Yes, and well: I look forward to using this brush and seeing how it ages. Now, there's another lovely characteristic to Escoda brushes, probably having to do with being made in Spain as opposed to Britain or France: They're relatively inexpensive. My W&N #3 cost me around $30 new. My Escoda #4? $16.40. No, really, go see. If you buy some from Artist and Craftsman, put a note in your order that Comic Tools Blog sent you, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt my standing with the company. I should tell you, however, that Blick has a better price. Buying from your local art store, if possible, is always best, especially since you can test the brushes, but if not, I feel obliged to ask that you consider Artist and Craftsman, a Maine-based and very fine art supply company, for your Kolinsky needs.

On another topic, it seems Amalgamated Biscuit has started something. Now Comic Tools reader Kat has made this adorable Totoro ink well as a more stable platform to resist upset by cat:

You can see more photos in her post about it. This is the inkwell I've been using, given to me by a friend:


(Remember, never dip your brush more than halfway if you can help it, and rinse it immediately if you do.)

See you next week!

MONSTER WINSOR AND NEWTON BRUSH SALE RIGHT NOW!!!! HOLY CRAP!!!! ENDS APRIL 2ND!

http://www.aswexpress.com/discount-art-supplies/online/703/art-supplies/6

This week: Brush discussion, and turning Patton into the Moon.

First off, for all those concerned, my fingers have healed creepily well, to the point where I have fingerprints back except on a very tiny bit on my thumb, and they're growing in there too. If you want to see what they looked like after one week, click here. Do NOT click if you're squeamish at all. My thumb, which got the deepest cut, is still a tad tender, but they're both up and running with honest-to-God skin. The skin was really dry until the last few days, because my new sebaceous glands hadn't grown in yet. Now I can sweat and produce oil, so it doesn't look like I have crazy localized eczema.

So, there was a lot of conversation about last week's topic and my retraction of my endorsement of Rosemary and co's brushes, and I'd like to discuss and clarify a few things about that, while also rolling in a couple items that Chris Schweiser gave me to review when I was at SCAD Atlanta.

In the comments Kiel provided a link to a fantastic primer/comparison on five different name brand brushes on artist Mike Crowell's site. Mike has, without reservation, the worst artist web page I have ever seen in my life, which is saying a lot, which makes it all the more bizarre that this amazing tutorial is just sitting there amongst the 4 other pages of his site, which include a home page consisting almost solely of a terrible photo of him, an art page with 2 pages of art, a page with nothing but am email address, and a links page. His brush lesson is as good as the rest of the site is bafflingly poor, and I learned some new things from it. It also serves as a great primer for the point I want to make, which is about consistency and/versus quality.

Mike's brush page confirms yet again what I and many others have always said- they don't do it often, but when they do, Windsor and Newton makes the best brushes in the world. But if you just broke/lost/ruined your brush and you need one NOW for a project, you can't afford to go to 3 different stores and try every brush looking for one that works, and possibly not even find one. (This has happened to me- twice.) Everyone I know who doesn't use Windsor and Newton either never used a great one and abandoned them early, or used them for years until the quality control dropped so low they got frustrated and jumped ship. But the fact is, there are people out there still using 20 year old W&N brushes. I've used my #3 like I hated it for 6 years now and it's still as good as new. Windsor and Newton , a GOOD Windor and Newton, is a mythical beast, the brush that all other brushes aspire to be. As a brand, they suck and are FLAKY inconsistent.

Raphael is the brand most people jump ship to, and with good reason. You still need to test them, but their QC is much better than W&N. You can actually find a working Raphael brush in one store stocked with them almost every time. If you ordered five I'd give you great odds more than one would work. And their best brushes are just a hair under a good W&N, which is like being a shade slower than the Millennium Falcon but not breaking down nearly as much.

The reason I was so excited about Rosemary was not that they were amazing quality brushes- they're not. They are perfectly effective, however. A good Rosemary brush is like what I'd picture a solid military issue brush to be like- it lacks finesse, but it's solidly built and in skilled hands will get the job done. Rosemary brushes won't hold as much ink and have less spring than better brushes, but because every single one I and everyone else ordered was a perfect example, I recommended them because she was the most consistent. Rosemary brushes were, I thought, the first brushes I'd ever seen where you could order ONE brush and get a working brush every time, guaranteed.

But now I semi-frequently have reports sent to me of people ordering brushes from her that are a little off. Now, sure, she has a policy that she'll replace anything you're not satisfied with, but the point was, she was a slightly lower quality but still good brush that I was recommending because of their insane consistency. So if she lacks the consistency, and she doesn't have any edge on quality, why the hell not just tell you to rummage through the art store for Raphaels?

So it is on that basis that I retract my endorsement. I say put your effort and money into a higher quality brush. You really do get what you pay for with brushes.

Mike's brush page has a section towards the bottom about identifying quality brushes that's more specific and informative than anything I've ever posted, so you should read that, maybe even print it out and take it with you when shopping. He inspects every bristle, and if you've ever used a brush you know that's not fanatical- one splayed hair will ruin a brush. It's like a grain of sand in a Swiss army knife.

According to Mike Raphael and Scharff brushes are essentially identical in constriction and quality control, so if you need to dash out to buy one they'd both be good choices. I have never heard of ANYONE being disappointed with either. However, because mora brands means more likely hood you'll be able to find a brush if you need to find one fast, allow me to toss in a brand that's only become recently available in America, but which seems to be in growing demand amongst the students at SCAD's Atlanta campus: the Escoda, made in Tajmir, Spain.

Here you can see the #2 Tajmir on top, over my trusty #3 W&N, and my #2 Rosemary. Click to see the image larger.
I wish I had a #2 Windsor to show you how the belly's compare better, but you can see that the Escoda has a better belly than the Rosemary, though not as much as the W&N.
A simple line test showed that indeed, the Escoda holds far more ink than the Rosemary. I wish I could compare it to other brands, but I don't have any. It feels to me slightly wispier but just as springy as the Raphaels I've tried. It's a good brush and several SCAD Atlanta students and faculty seem to just love them. Chris claims the quality control is very good on them. Look for them if you're ever out brush hunting. If nothing else, it's another good option that increases your chances of coming back home with a tool you can draw with. While I was there Chris also gave me a bottle of a new Japanese ink I'd never seen nor heard of that's carried in a local art supply store that caters to the cartooning students. It's called Holbein ink. According to their company profile they started in 1900 a a Japanese company producing "European" artist materials (They do not elaborate), which presumably explains why they chose a German name. Like everything I've ever bought from Japan, the ink bottle comes in nifty, crazy sturdy plastic packaging that you don't have to destroy to open.

Here you can see the Holbein logo in a calligraphic font, with an Iron cross over it, because I guess that's what the Japanese thought people would think was German at the time.
As usual, I LOVE Japanese infographics.
The ink is one of the best I've ever tried, continuing Japan's total dominance in modern ink making. It's matte and deeply black, sort of like Dr. Ph. Martin's Black Star Hi Carb ink. I like this ink a little better. If you can get ahold of it, definitely try it. My understanding is that it comes in two thicknesses, this one, and another that is very thick and actually needs dilution before use.

Changing subjects, remember how I said you'd crap yourselves when you saw what was delaying me? It was Two large poster projects, one of which I can't show you just yet, but the other of which is finished, and I'll share it's making with you below.

First off, some of you may recall a ways back last year when Patton Oswalt had me do this poster for a show of his:


Well, he liked that one so much had asked me to design the postcard for another show.

I needed a fairly simple design that would read easily at a small size, and something that would force people to look at it, which as every artist knows means face, eyes, hands, boobs or any nudity. Patton has a fantastically expresive and distinctive face (He's one of the comedians who I think almost all of his fans know what he looks like), so I decided to go with his face. Plus, I already knew how to draw him, so that would save time.

You can now follow along with my process by matching the numbered paragraphs to their matching numbered picture:


1: This was my first doodle of what would turn out to e the final composition, although I did more than 30 other drawings to make sure, as is usual with me on illustrations. Illustrations aren't as intuitive for me as comics, and require a lot of planning. I throw away a lot of work doing illustrations. Obviously, the concept is to have his head be the moon from "La Voyage Dans La Lune." The twist is that the rocket in his eye is actually the LCross rocket stage that was launched at the moon to look for water. It took me 3 hours to find 6 good, accurate images of this goddamned thing:
The probe is the gold thing on the top.

2: This was a computer sketch I did to establish the basic lettering shapes in the title, which was to be hand-lettered, and of the overall image. I like using digital when I have to do a lot of drafts to figure out black balance but not necessarily a lot of redrawing.
3: I penciled his face and then found myself stuck for about 2 days as to how the hell to make him look like his head was the moon without making him look like he had a terrible skin condition. Nothing was working. I got really frustrated with the delay when Patton wrote me asking if it was done so he could post it for New Years and I had to tell him no.

4: Finally, I figured it out and successfully tested it it on the computer: instead of making his head the moon, I'd do what the original filmmakers had done- apply the moon like a mast around his head, with his head sliiiiiightly pushing out from the moon, so you can still barely still see his original jaw line, but then stretching his hairline and ears out to the edges of the moon. It worked perfectly- still recognizably Patton, but looking like the moon from the film.

5: Next came the pencils, for the drawing, border, and hand lettering.

6: Then came the inked lettering, which you see me holding here for scale:


Hand lettering is generally drawn large when a very smooth finished product is needed; reduction eliminates any mistakes. I also added in the rest of the lettering, a tedious process, because I wasn't using a computer font, but rather an old font that I'd scanned in and modified slightly. I had to place each and every letter by hand.

My girlfriend swooped in and gave me some help with this- she is absolutely excellent at spacing type, and her adjustments made all the difference in the world.

I emailed Patton about whether his current hairstyle matched the one I used in this drawing, but he never wrote back. As it turned out I didn't need him for that one, because that very night he was on the Tonight show, and I was able to see his hair there and adjust my drawing accordingly. (I ended up making is a mishmosh of about 4 similar hairstyles like his current one, figuring it would be more recognizable to average them.)

I had an incredibly odd moment inking the drawing. I was getting fristrated drawing the Lcross booster and I decided to move in to his face for a bit to relax (I like to eat my veggies before my meat, so to speak), and as soon as I started inking his eyebrows Patton called in live to the Best Show on WFMU, which I was listening to, so suddenly I was getting Patton through the eyes and in the ears at the same time. My night suddenly became a Russian Nesting doll of Patton. I tried emailing him to see if I could get him to talk about how I was listening to him and drawing him at the same time while he was still on the air, but he didn't get it till after. It was worth a shot.

It had been awhile since I inked anything, and in my rustiness I over-inked the left side of Patton's face, requiring me to lightbox that side and re-ink it, as you can see here: 7: I drew the border with a thick bamboo skewer and then inverted the image in photoshop.

8: And voila, the finished product, which you can see better below: (Click to enlarge)
I'm pretty damned proud of it. It's by far my best lettering job, and I love the composition.

I look forward to when I can show you the other poster I've been working on. It's still in development right now.

Finally, I thought you all might like this funny shot of me looking out of the eye window in my camera mask, which allows me to look at things for real and not just through the camera's rear screen. Next week: My visit to SCAD

This week: THE UNIVERSE AVENGES ITSELF ON ME FOR MY LACK OF ENTRIES.

Hi folks,

Loads of content not generated by me this week, which is awesome, since typing is slightly awkward since I lopped the tips of my thumb and index finger off my left (thankfully non-dominant) hand. First time in what's been probably over 11 years straight of multiple-times daily knife use that I've cut myself with a knife I was using. And though there were extenuating circumstances, the fact is that knives are like wild animals- if one bites you, it's your fault. Ironically, it actually happened maybe two minutes tops after I was telling my girlfriend about the silly things I'd seen people do in knife safety training classes.

Anyway, getting on with it:

Here's a video of Erika Moen, Dylan Meconis, and Bill Mudron talking about the art and life issues of being a cartoonist. It is thick with insight and blue humor, my favorite combination. The title of the video will give you a pretty good idea if their humor is for you.

Here's a fantastic essay by Evan Dorkin about the issue of health insurance, specifically as it relates to cartoonists, and even more specifically as it relates to cartoonists living in NYC. Bonus for you NYC people: It lists specific resources that his wife spent a lot of time tracking down, and gives tips on how to best go about contacting them. Bonus bonus: It includes a link to a video interview by Time with my friend Julia Wertz.

Finally, I'll conclude with some real tool talk:

Comic Tools reader Reynold Kissling purchased some Rosemary brushes recently (remember my article about them?) and compared them to his trusty Winsor and Newton, and I'm sad to say that they really came out lacking. Perhaps as she's had to fill more orders her quality control has gone down, but in any event the reason I recommended them was that you could order them sight unseen and TRUST that they'd be great. It seems that this is no longer the case, and I therefore no longer recommend getting them, if buying them is going to be the same crapshoot every other brand is. Better to go to the store and actually try your brushes out. I have reformatted the impeccably thorough, well photographed, and rather Comic Tools-esque report he gave on his livejournal and pasted it below. His website is here. His book "Kingwood Himself" can be read in its entirety over at Top Shelf's webcomics page, Top Shelf 2.0, and he will be selling his new book "Pale Blue Dot" at the Stumptown Comics Fest next year. I thank him for bringing this issue to the attention of Comic Tools readers.

Rosemary & Co. Brushes Review
I've been inking predominantly with brushes now for several years, and have become....somewhat discretionary in my tastes (some would say obsessive). My number one tool, my excalibur if you will, has always been the Winsor & Newton Series 7 Kolinsky brush, size #2. Simply put, the brush is perfect. It has a huge variety of line weights, has excellent snap, and holds a preposterous amount of ink for its size. They say the tool doesn't make the man, but when it comes to inking, you NEED a tool that will give you complete control over your linemaking, and the Winsor & Newton #2 does the job. So what's the problem? Well, as I'm sure most of you know, Winsor & Newton's brushes have become steadily less reliable over the last few years. A W&N brush is expensive, and if the bristles are even just a little bit out of alignment, then the whole brush is worthless and you've just wasted your hard-earned money. Three out of the last four W&N brushes I bought have been duds (and I do the water-test at the store before I buy them). I'm sick of throwing away my money for worthless brushes, and for the past few months I've been searching for a comparable alternative. Enter Rosemary & Company. I heard about them from the blog Comic Tools (run by a guy even more obsessively anal than me), and after reading rave review after rave review, I took the plunge and ordered a Series 33 #2 and #0. Suffice to say, my expectations were high. They arrived yesterday, and I've had a good chance to test them out.


I decided to compare them side by side with my Winsor & Newton:


The first thing I noticed was that the Rosemary #2 is much thinner than the W&N #2. More on that later. Then I decided to compare the brushes dry, to see how the bristles fan out when not held together by moisture:


This was the first sign of trouble. With a brand new brush, you expect the bristles to fan out pretty evenly. Here you can see that on the Rosemary brushes several bristles are sticking out haphazardly, pointing in every direction. Here is a closeup of each brush's bristles, starting with the W&N #2:

At this point, I want to mention that my Winsor & Newton brush is over a year old. I've beat that thing to hell, leaving dried ink in the ferrule and dragging it across harsh paper, and yet its bristles are still more uniform than the brand new Rosemary brushes. You can plainly see that many of the bristles in the Rosemary brushes are not aligned. So how were they to ink with? Well, mostly it was frustrating. The #2 couldn't get a fine point, it didn't snap very well, and it did not retain very much ink. This is where its size comes in. As I mentioned earlier, the belly of the Rosemary #2 brush is much thinner than the belly of the W&N. The belly of a brush holds ink and helps provide the snap that is so crucial to making crisp lines. Even more frustrating was despite the fact that the Rosemary brush was thinner, it could not make thin lines like the W&N can. I found that I had to resort to using the #0 to make the same lines my W&N can easily handle by itself. Also, the brushes just felt weak. I had to apply more downward force to get variety out of the lines, and in those instances the entire brush bent with the curve all the way down to the ferrule, instead of just the tip. And lastly, the Rosemary brushes lost their point extremely easily. If they got the least bit dry or if I tried to take too sharp a corner, the tip would split and fork off, breaking the single line into two. Here's a portion of the panel I inked with the Rosemary brushes:

I know it doesn't look like I was experiencing the disaster I just described, but you can rest assured that I was fighting with these brushes the whole way. Last and probably least, the handle of the Rosemary brushes felt inferior to the W&N brush. I took a photo as evidence:

Take a look at the light reflecting off of the handles of each brush. On the left, the reflection coming of the W&N is smooth and regular all the way to the edges. Immediately to the right, the reflection is bumpy and irregular, especially near the edges. These reflections highlight the irregularity of either the wood of the handles or the paint applied to them. This is certainly nitpicking, but it does make a difference. I'd like to think that I am a scientific man, and that you wouldn't be satisfied with me simply describing the problems I had with these brushes, so I thought I would prove them empirically through a series of inking tests:

The first test consisted of me dipping the brushes fully (not to the ferrule of course) and then drawing a straight line continuously until they ran out of ink. As you can see, the W&N ran roughshod over the Rosemary #2, and the #0 could barely hang in there for three lines.


In this test, I simply followed a tight curve in a single stroke with each brush. Now this test probably reveals my weaknesses with inking more than anything else, but you can see that each brush did about the same. I would like to note, however, that the #0 forked out at the end of the line.


This last test is the most revealing. Here, I started a line with each brush at a certain thickness, then tested the limit for how thick and thin a line each could produce. As you can see, the W&N has an extreme capacity for variety of line weight, going from phat with a "ph" to supermodel-thin with no trouble and with me in complete control throughout. The Rosemary #2, however, can't even come close to reaching the same level of thickness, and you can see that the line already starts to break up before I even finish the first fat part. As you can see, I was able to get the Rosemary #2 down to the same thinness as the W&N, but not without losing the line entirely. I obviously am not in control of the brush at this point. The Rosemary #0 obviously can't keep up, and the brush is almost totally dry before I can even get to the second thickness test. The Winsor & Newton runs laps around the Rosemary brushes in this last round. So there you have it. The brand-spanking new Rosemary brushes, which came on the heels of rave reviews and high expectations, couldn't even stand up to an abused ink-clogged year-old Winsor & Newton brush. But really, there are no winners here. As long as Winsor & Newton brushes are going to be so inconsistent, we are going to be left with worthless brushes and empty wallets. The search for a better brush goes on...

This week: Tiny little metal ball

So most of you probably recognize this:

A Pentel Pocket brush, the finest brush pen on the market. Real bristles made of some sort of high grade polymer that maintains a razor-tip after years of use. Cartridge-loads with that special super-fine pigment Japanese ink that can sit in bristles for weeks without clogging them, and it's waterproof (when allowed to cure for a day) to boot.

If you're like me and you go long periods without using a tool though, you may have trouble with even the Pentel's finely ground ink settling a little bit. Unless your cartridge has a tiny metal ball in it.

About a year after first purchasing my pocket brush nearly 5 years ago, I needed new cartridges, so I went and got some, and found that the new cartridges I bought all had tiny metal balls trapped inside, to stir the pigment when moved or shaken, like a spray paint can. Needless to say having another little bit of cool gadgetry added to my favorite drawing tool delighted me. The cartridges I'd bought before had no metal balls, so I assumed that the metal balls were a new upgrade, one I was very happy with.

Next time I needed new cartridges, I bought them, opened them, and...no...balls.

Thank god I had the thought to rifle my garbage for my last cartridge. I cut the little ball out and jammed it into the new ball-less cartridge, and it worked great. There was no design difference except one was missing a ball, and the flexible plastic allowed me to push the ball in without damaging or expanding the cartridge and ruining the airtight seal.

I have never since found cartridges with balls, and I check every time I'm in a store that has them. They must have been discontinued for some reason, perhaps expense.

So, if any of you should ever be lucky enough to buy a pack with the metal ball inside, here's how you keep hold of it:

Go to a sink, because you'll need to be someplace you can get dirty and easily clean up, and you'll also need to do some rinsing.

First, unscrew the back off and pull off the cartridge lust like usual.

Now tip the cartridge open-end down so the ball is on the open side, and cut the butt end off with a sharp exacto. This is the part where being near a sink is really useful.

Now you can tip out the tiny metal ball. Cute, isn't it? Now quickly, rinse it off.

Now fetch a new ink cartridge. I keep mine in an old cigarette case that belonged to one of my great-grandparents.

Put the tiny metal ball on the end just like this:

If you somehow had access to a stainless steel ball-bearing of the same size, then you could use that.

Now, with the ball in the end of the cartridge, push it back in place. It will be forced through the seal and into the cartridge with no harm to any of the parts, I assure you.

Now close the pen like usual!

Next week: hoop, cone, and vase

Readers come through again
So awhile back Comic Tools reader and skilled brush-fu practitioner Sarah Musi (The link is to her blog, which has her art and which you should go see) said in the comments that she had bought a bunch of Rosemary & Co. brushes, and I asked her if she'd mind reviewing them, as she'd bought several kinds I've never tried before and a few that I had. Well, on top of being a good artist she's also got impeccable timing, because she sent me her reviews right after I announced my sick leave this week. Here's what she sent me:

Review of Rosemary & Co.'s Kolinsky Sable Rounds, Rigger and Extended Point Brushes

Hi everyone. Since Matt is sick this week, this is probably an appropriate time to jump in and fill some space here on Comic Tools.

I recently completed a comic book with an obscene amount of dry-brushing and by the end, I had pretty much killed all my favorite Princeton watercolor brushes. Needing to replace them, I decided to take Matt's advice and order some (actually, twelve) from Rosemary & Co. and he asked me to do a review. I just finished inking the t-shirt design below where I used a few of the more standard brushes that most comic illustrators prefer so that gave me a chance to get acquainted with them enough to write this. I apologize in advance for the blotchiness of these iPhone photos.

Some of the brushes I bought:

1) {S2230} Golden Synthetic Spikey Comber 3/4" (for lots of tiny parallel lines made easy)

2) {S46} Sable Extended Point 12 (essentially a kolinsky rigger embedded in a red sable round)

3) {S43} Squirrel Tinter 1/4" (for dry stippling)

4) {S33} Kolinsky Comber 1/8" (for feathers, grass and hair)

5) {S55} Kolinsky 1/4"

6) {S44} Kolinsky Rigger 2

7) {S33} Kolinsky Round 3

8) {S33} Kolinsky Round 2

9) {S323} Kolinsky Round 2

This was the first bit of work I did using Rosemary & Co. kolinsky sable brushes. Size 0 round for smaller animals, 2 round for text and larger animals and a 2 rigger for everything else. Medium: Speedball India ink and Bombay red India ink on 11"x14" Bristol vellum.

Kolinsky Round

First off, I LOVE these rounds. I bought several from Series 22, 33 and 323. They not only hold a ton of ink without dumping it out the second you touch it to the paper but they also make effortless buttery-smooth lines. I was particularly impressed by how well the rounds kept their point, even when gunked up. For those of you who love that chunky Craig Thompson skidding dry-brush effect, just try using one of these with some old goopy ink; I promise, you will be very pleased with the result.

Note about the size 0: I typically use a 2 or 3 round for most comic work because they are great for making both thin and fat lines but 0 rounds are very often too small. However, out of curiosity, I bought the Series 22 Round 0 and after working with it for several hours found that, contrary to my expectations, it actually suited my needs quite well. In some cases, it was able to accomplish the same effect as the size 2 and 3 brushes I had been using before but was far better for getting into tight spaces.

Kolinsky Rigger

Riggers were originally intended for painting the rigging on ships (thus the name) and therefore are fantastic for long straight lines or smooth curves. All you have to do is tip it slightly to the side and apply a bit of pressure. This lays the ends of the hairs down against the paper and allows the tip to maintain contact even if your hand isn't doing a very good job of making the line. My hand isn't always the steadiest at 2:00AM (when most artists do their best work), so I use riggers about half of the time.

This particular rigger (Series 44, Size 2), although wonderful to paint with, was quite different from what I expected. You have to be careful about not overloading this brush with too much ink. I've grown accustomed to riggers of the same size producing a moderate to thin line but this brush produced a medium to very thick line, especially when initially set down on paper with so much available ink. If I wanted a thin line, I had to be very careful in order to get it right, starting by scraping it against the side of the ink jar about three or four times to get most of the ink out of the belly.

In addition, it had a bit of a unruly point that was difficult to control at anything below an 80 degree angle to the paper when it was not in motion. I myself, like many other brush inkers who came from the drawing world, paint with my hand rested on the paper, so the brush is usually tipped somewhere between 30 and 80 degrees but very rarely above that, unless I'm choking up on the ferrule to do detail work. Therefore, the point tended to get away from me quite a bit on this particular rigger when I was working on short lines or spots.

Sable Extended Point

I was SO excited when I found this brush (Series 46, Size 12); it was the first one I tried out of the twelve brushes I bought. As I mentioned before, I use riggers quite a bit. The downside of most riggers is that they don't hold much ink, especially if they are a synthetic. You are always having to pick it up from the line, get more ink and then carefully find the line again and try to keep the stroke going like nothing ever happened. So what you have a brush that's made for making long lines which can't actually hold enough ink to finish those lines.

Rosemary's newly-conceived 12 Extended Point brush combines the great ink-holding capability of a size 12 round and the stability of a rigger (I would estimate about a size 2).

The one drawback to this brush is that it has trouble with thicker inks. I use Speedball India Ink and it tends to get more dense over time from being open during inking. This wouldn't typically pose a problem with a normal round or rigger, but with the Extended Point, the thicker ink gets stuck up in the belly and the rigger dries up and begins to deflect to the side where the round hairs end. That said, this brush may require some practice, even with thinner ink.

To Summarize...

Overall, I was very pleased with Rosemary's kolinsky brushes. Having spent only a few days working with them, I can already tell that they are finely crafted, very long-wearing and have a much better ink reservoir than the other high-quality brushes I have been using. Their only "fault", stemming mainly from my artistic preferences combined with my own probable in-expertise, is that they aren't quite as good at making super-fine lines. But there are other brushes in the world to fill that requirement, so I am satisfied.

Despite her location in the UK, Rosemary's prices are significantly below what you would spend in an art store for a brush of half the quality. She takes PayPal, shipping was super quick (within a week of payment) and the brushes were received, well-packed in pristine condition along with a nice catalogue containing actual-size pictures of all the other brushes she makes.

If you are looking for some great brushes, I absolutely recommend giving Rosemary & Co. your business.

AND THAT'S NOT ALL.

Comic Tools reader and storyboard artist Mark Kennedy sent me a link to his terrific blog where he analyzes comics pages, illustrations, paintings, photographs and film stills to show what makes them work, with special attention paid to composition, drama, and the posing of figures. I'm already learning from it, and I'll probably start linking to individual posts of his pretty commonly. Everyone should subscribe to his wonderful blog.

Mark also linked me to this, a blog which posts a lesson from the Famous Artist's Cartoon Course every month. (I've linked directly to the Famous...Course tag rather than the blog's main page, for your convenience. But you should also putter around.) At the bottom of each post, there is a link where the entire lesson can be downloaded in PDF format. When I was young I paid (by which I mean my mother paid) hundreds of dollars for a poor-man's version of such a course, and here it is free. Totally insane.

Sarah and Mark are hereby awarded Comic Tools Reader gold-stars, which smell like grapes when you scratch them and say "Grape Job" on them. Holy cow, you guys, thank you so, SO much.

Next week on Comic Tools: How to get the Perfect White Out Consistency.

P.S.: Sorry about the weird formatting in this post, I've spent half an hour trying to fix it and I can't make it work. It doesn't help that the preview field is totally inaccurate to what I see on screen.