Alpha Flag: Echo - PDF Download (Patreon)

I drew Echo from June 2012 - October 2012. This is the last chapter I drew before I started experimenting with nib inking. When I started drawing Alpha Flag in December 2010, I had recently switched from inking with a Pentel Color Brush (a quasi-reusable/disposable brush pen with nylon bristles and an ink reservoir in the handle) to inking with a Kolinsky sable brush, dipped in ink. As a way of training myself to improve with the brush, I made a couple rules for Alpha Flag inks:

1. No Rulers - I could use the ruler as much as I wanted in the penciling stages, but once I had ruled out the panel borders, the ruler was banished. At a portfolio review the summer before, an editor had told me that my inked lines lacked a certain unity, so I had decided I'd train some into my lines by treating them all the same. Embrace the wobble inside the frames.

2. Nothing But Brush - the asterisk there being "unless I'm drawing a pupil or a panel border" where I'd use microns. Because hell no to tiny brush circles.

For the most part, I achieved my goals. My brush lines got a lot better, and definitely a lot bolder. But by the time I was rounding out this chapter, I had already been experimenting with nibs and liked how much faster they made lines where the bold character of brushwork wasn't as crucial. And all things considered, my ligne claire faces are a lot easier to draw accurately with a nib.

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Renee really nailed this chapter, too. She added so much awesome drama to the night snowstorm and the golden ribbon when Kilo bites it.

I was really sad to see Kilo go. We barely got to know the little guy before he was getting absorbed back into the Diver. It's one of those things where when you write out the entire timeline, it fits, and then when you're finally drawing it it feels too soon! An interesting quirk of the print versions, though, is that all of Kilo's dialogue is legible if you really squint.