Replacing digital ink with China ink 1 1

[Rick2you2]

I am thinking of buying some pages in which the artist had done the artwork in pencil, and partial India ink. Due to time deadlines, he finished the inking with the Photoshop fill tool. He is offering to finish the inking of the actual pages with India ink. The result would be “better” art, but not the actual published page.

Would you have him finish it or not? Would it affect value?
 
I am leaning to having him finish them, but, I suspect some collectors would not like the loss of originality. Thoughts?

[GotSuperPowers?]

I'd get it finished, especially if the original now looks incomplete/half-finished.  There are plenty of cases of the artist "completing" the art before parting with the originals.  If it was not the original artist, that would be a very different answer.

[stinkininkin]

On 6/8/2023 at 3:44 AM, Rick2you2 said:

I am thinking of buying some pages in which the artist had done the artwork in pencil, and partial India ink. Due to time deadlines, he finished the inking with the Photoshop fill tool. He is offering to finish the inking of the actual pages with India ink. The result would be “better” art, but not the actual published page.

Would you have him finish it or not? Would it affect value?
 
I am leaning to having him finish them, but, I suspect some collectors would not like the loss of originality. Thoughts?

Do you mean that the blacks got filled in digitally? If so, having the artist ink over those printed digital blacks would be no big deal. If the artist is going to ink over actual rendering and line-work that was pre printed digitally, that would be more problematic.

[Rick2you2]

On 6/8/2023 at 9:21 AM, stinkininkin said:

Do you mean that the blacks got filled in digitally? If so, having the artist ink over those printed digital blacks would be no big deal. If the artist is going to ink over actual rendering and line-work that was pre printed digitally, that would be more problematic.

This is an example of what he sent (with some of my editing), as well as an explanation. Personally, I love the improvements. Sorry, the first image is a bit blurry; there are some other pages involved, too:

"About the PS pages: I went through my archive (a jungle) and I have all three of them,

but this is how they look like right now:

 [see below] 

while working on Superboy, I was under killer deadlines; so I had to speed up the process by finishing the inks digitally, with the Photoshop Fill tool. If you are interested, I can ink them manually, and let me tell you, it will be a pleasure - digital inks are great for meeting deadlines, but it hurts to see them like this - nothing beats China Ink."

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by Rick2you2

[Dr. Balls]

I don't believe that adding inks would hurt the value of that piece - I say do what you want to improve the art. Especially if you have the original artist doing it. You've got proof of provenance - I think the art is all that much better for it.

I have an unpublished Liefeld piece from the late 90s that was done in pencils. I decided to track down the guy who would have likely inked it (Joe Weems) because he was working with Rob at that time on the book that the unpublished promo piece was attached to. He is inking over the pencils, and I don't care if people feel that it "devalues" the art to have modern inks over vintage pencils. If you can adhere to the spirit of the artwork (like finding the original artist or the person who would have done the inks in the original timeframe) - and make it look better, I think you'd enjoy it more and not really affect the value long-term.

[Will_K]

These days, even if an artist totally inks a piece, they might tweak it digitally for publication any way.  So there's not much of a difference any way.  It's a chicken or egg thing.

Not quite the same thing but there's the argument that says inks over blue lines (the published image) are better than the original pencils.  There's all kinds of ways to justify to yourself that you're getting what you pay for.

[RBerman]

I did this as well with a cover I got recently from a crowdfunded comic book. Shading was added digitally to the main character, probably by the colorist. I had the original artist add similar shading to the paper version and am quite happy with the results. He is going to do the same for me for the next cover in the series.

[J.Sid]

I had a Frank Quitely pencil page that had numerous Xs in the areas to fill in black. If I could have I'd have paid him to color them in with pencil so the page presented better. 

Instead I just sold the page.

 

Given that all the detail/line work on that Superboy page was done in ink, I would have no problem having the artist fill in the black areas.

 

Edited June 9, 2023 by J.Sid

[Rick2you2]

On 6/9/2023 at 11:39 AM, J.Sid said:

I had a Frank Quitely pencil page that had numerous Xs in the areas to fill in black. If I could have I'd have paid him to color them in with pencil so the page presented better. 

Instead I just sold the page.

 

Given that all the detail/line work on that Superboy page was done in ink, I would have no problem having the artist fill in the black areas.

 

Good to hear. I just bought it, with a few others. Inking to follow. 

[RafaVia]

I would ask for him to print a bluelines copy and have him ink that fully.

that way he could send you both pieces!

[The Voord]

On 6/9/2023 at 7:23 PM, RafaVia said:

I would ask for him to print a bluelines copy and have him ink that fully.

that way he could send you both pieces!

This.

 

[Rick2you2]

On 6/9/2023 at 2:23 PM, RafaVia said:

I don’t want to abuse him. He has two others to do this weekend, as well, and a fourth he is sending me that was fully inked. But for the volume and price, however, I will keep it in mind.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Rick2you2

[Will_K]

On 6/9/2023 at 2:23 PM, RafaVia said:

I would ask for him to print a bluelines copy and have him ink that fully.

that way he could send you both pieces!

I can imagine the artist not wanting to do that.  It would feel like doing the drawing a second time.  Filling in the blacks is kind of "mindless" and I imagine the artist is basically doing the blacks as a courtesy.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Will_K

[Rick2you2]

On 6/9/2023 at 5:55 PM, Will_K said:

I can imagine the artist not wanting to do that.  It would feel like doing the drawing a second time.  Filling in the blacks is kind of "mindless" and I imagine the artist is basically doing the blacks as a courtesy.

He had actually volunteered to do it for free because he didn’t like the way the originals looked. Even though he didn’t ask, I sent him a little extra (as well as the PayPal fee). His work reminds me a little of Daniel Sampere, but it isn’t digital.

[vodou]

On 6/9/2023 at 6:07 PM, Rick2you2 said:

Even though he didn’t ask, I sent him a little extra (as well as the PayPal fee).

That is a fine thing; if we all did that regularly and often in our everyday interactions…a minor “I see you and thank you”, I bet at least half the stress of life would evaporate in short order. That other half, hey no free lunches…life “here” is designed to distract and be debilitating. And, of course, some actors would see such moves as weakness and try to work out how to take even further advantage 🥲 which does not mean we shouldn’t still do it anyway 😁

Thanks Rick for the reminder to be kinder.

[alxjhnsn]

I'd make the same call that you did. Enjoy your blacks.

[Rick2you2]

On 6/10/2023 at 5:19 AM, vodou said:

That is a fine thing; if we all did that regularly and often in our everyday interactions…a minor “I see you and thank you”, I bet at least half the stress of life would evaporate in short order. That other half, hey no free lunches…life “here” is designed to distract and be debilitating. And, of course, some actors would see such moves as weakness and try to work out how to take even further advantage 🥲 which does not mean we shouldn’t still do it anyway 😁

Thanks Rick for the reminder to be kinder.

I’m not a good candidate for someone to try and abuse.👿 

But thank you for your kind thoughts.

Edited June 10, 2023 by Rick2you2

[Rick2you2]

Just a warning here. Sometimes, the artist doesn’t ink quite the same way as in the original. Only one visible error so far from the scans, and I actually like it a little better the new way, but it isn’t identical.