I love your penstrokes. They do a wonderful job of not only shading, but giving a sense of form and direction. Very Durer-esque.

Thankyou so much :)

You're welcome! And thank you for keeping traditional art here alive on FA!

What kind of pens do you use- I would like to start inking things and making short cartoons but always smear or mess up everything I attempt.

I love the fluid motion and organic-ness of the lines you used.

This is just some random Micron pen. Personally, I only use the three smallest sizes 005, and the two after that. I'm used to dip pens ( get a random little speedball sketching set from Michaels, its only like 7 bucks and a bottle of good india ink. It'll save you money in the long run too :D ) and actually prefer them. Basically anything I draw on paper is dip pens. Plus that way you can buy colored inks and go all out. Also, Dip/nib pens let you change line width on the fly, with these you're stuck and I feel its less organic. But if you want pen pens, Micron's the way to go. The ink is darker, more india true black. Don't buy Faber Castel's. They're good but the ink in them is more blue and more of a lighter "dark grey" than true black which pisses me off if you forget you started inking with a Faber and grab and Micron and oh oops this whole section is way lighter now. Hurp. Anyway, my random nitpicking aside. Microns win and come in a bunch of sizes but aren't refillable. Dip pens will save you money, let you drop better lines ( i think ), and I've never really had a huge issue with smudging as long as I'm not dropping huge thick lines ( make sure the ink you buy is light fast ), but you're going to need to practice a bit with them first, God i bent so many nibs into shit when I started playing with those cause of using too much pressure, and if you fit a nib funny into the holder you might get a drip at the worst possible time and be tempted to ragequit. /nerdout

PS i'm used to lines being tiny thanks to etching using needles to get my lines so while I'm used to super tiny lines you might actually like the larger sizes of pens lol I'm just weird and really nitpicky with some stuff

Awesome Art. Actual concepts here! I can see the fine etching expertiese in your work. Im wondering if you are using the metal tipped well pens.

Here I'm just using Micron pens. Usually I use dip pens with metal nibs.