All the pages from issues 1 and 2 have been inked at print size, meaning I print them on 9x12 2 ply bristol board and ink them at the actual size they will be printed. For anyone who doesn't know, most comics are inked larger than they reproduce, usually around 150% of the final size. I inked them small to help with my speed. I tend to put too much detail into larger pages, so working at the final size kept me from doing that.
It worked. The trick, then, was to apply the lessons to larger, normally sized ink pages, done on 11x17 2 ply bristol board. I went back to normal sized inking on issue 3 and I think the lessons have stuck pretty well. I'll share some of those pages in a bit.
I also do a lot of "post" work in Photoshop. I try to plan ahead and know what I'm going to want to do digitally, then ink areas according to what I'm going to do later. For example, I kept the inking on the rocks (on this first page) simple because I knew I planned to add some texture to them digitally. Explosions, planets, textures - these are the kinds of things that I find to be much more time efficient with Photoshop. I can also get textures that would be nearly impossible to get with paper and brushes and/or pens.
