I'm testing out a new tool: a waterbrush filled with India ink. I've used a waterbrush for years, but only with...water. Even though it says on the package you can fill it with ink, doing so never occurred to me until I saw
this Instagram account.
I tried it out on a sketch of Vivian James that I had lying around: (plus Faber-Castell brushpens for color accents)
Verdict: this may be the solution to all of my problems.
Well, to a major problem of mine: drawing too slow. My process had been: sketch in pencil, do a preliminary inking with thin lines, erase the pencil, color, then go back and thicken the ink lines. This enables me to change to: sketch in pencil, ink, erase pencil, color. Much faster!
I'm not able to be really precise with it (yet) so some things involving fine detail will have to stick to the old method, but for lots of things (particularly animals and nature, of which I'll be drawing a lot soon... exciting announcement to come) it will be great.