 This video is in partnership with BetterHelp. Hello and welcome back to The Average or welcome to The Average. I don't know, what's this intro? It's not making sense because it's like, not welcome to The Average but. Welcome to this video. I'm Steph, I'm The Average Artist and today we're checking out some inks from Stuart Semple and Culture Hustle. If you haven't heard of Culture Hustle, they do all these weird and wonderful art supplies and I'm lucky enough to be sent some stuff by them. I actually picked these out to be sent them. Pull for you, which is very nice of them. But these are the inks. So we've got Wink and Blink. So this is apparently supposed to be a really, really dark black ink and a really white ink, I don't know, or maybe a very opaque white. So I thought I'd just do some nib drawing today. This is my nib. What is this pen called? You know what I mean, this nib pen. And I'm pretty sure I've done a lot of drawing with this but I haven't done it in a while and I used to ink a lot of comics with just an ink pen before. So I really like using them. This is gonna be a very casual, chatty video. So do stick around. Before I just practice drawing some people because it's been a while since I've just drawn random people in Pinterest picking out some images that I like just to practice. What I'm gonna do is just go ahead and dip right into this ink, which is not necessarily the right thing to do but it's what I'm doing. Scratch it off here and let's get going. Drawing someone just freehand, I think it's really good to practice freehand drawing sometimes because with no sketch underneath because it helps you to get better at looking and also just being confident with your line, you know? Sometimes we have to just go for it and hope that it's gonna work out. Sometimes it doesn't but it's okay guys because we're practicing. This eye looks a little bit odd but that's fine. That's all good. So a little bit of ink goes along where as you can see it's kind of I dipped it once and I'm getting all these lines. So I'm trying to get used to the different pressures of the brush. What I really brush the nib, what I really enjoy about the nib is that you can get like different line quality depending on how hard you press, how full of ink the is the level, how full of ink the nib is. So I think it could be really interesting to see these lines because they feel a bit more organic and a bit more free and more interesting. And also if we have different line thickness with throughout our drawing, it makes it more visually interesting to look at which is something I need to remember because I always just kind of do this flat consistency of line. If we have different indicators, different line thickness, then it can look much nicer. Obviously you could probably use this to refill fountain pens and stuff but I'm not so knowledgeable on fountain pens just yet. I'm obviously enjoying using fountain pens more and more if you guys have been watching my other videos and I'm just kind of getting into it a lot more but I'm still not that super knowledgeable on it as many of you guys are actually because everyone commented on the last couple of videos like you're doing it wrong and I was like teach me your ways. Do teach me. This is the most awful drawing ever but we're practicing so it's fine. This video is in paid partnership with BetterHelp. It's something interfering with your happiness or preventing you from achieving your goals. If you have any issues like depression or anxiety or if you're just a person that lives in this difficult world and trying to navigate through it then therapy can give you the tools to approach your life in a different way and that's why I'm excited to tell you about BetterHelp. BetterHelp's mission is to make therapy accessible and this is an important mission because finding a therapist can be hard. BetterHelp is a platform that makes finding a therapist easy because it's online, it's remote and just by filling out a few questions, BetterHelp can match you with a credentialised therapist in as little as a few days. It's easy to sign up and get matched with a therapist. There's a link in my description. It's betterhelp.com forward slash average artist. Clicking that link helps support this channel but it also gives you 10% off your first month BetterHelp so you can connect with a therapist and see if it helps you and because finding a therapist is sometimes difficult and it doesn't always fit, it's quite common to find that you might want to change your therapist so you can easily switch with different therapists at no additional cost. So if you're struggling, consider online therapy with BetterHelp. Click the link in the description or visit betterhelp.com forward slash average artist. Thank you again to BetterHelp for supporting this channel. Just trying to get a bit loose. I feel like I'm just really stiff at the moment because I've just started drawing and I haven't warmed up or anything. I'm just warming up with you guys. Maybe we can make this line pop out a bit more to draw your attention. Also her eyebrows are like really, really big. So I really do want that in this image because I really like big, thick eyebrows. There you go guys, fun fact. Fun fact about me, I love thick eyebrows. So I don't know if I can use watercolors with it on top. I'll have to check that out now. Yeah, this is really nice ink so far. It's really good quality. If that's, I can be the judge of that. I think I'm really enjoying the way it's flowing and it's super black, like they said. I mean, there's not much to say about ink, I guess. There's not much to review. So this video is gonna be more talking about style and practice. I mean, I'm gonna stick there because that line just looks weird, but it's practice, guys. I need to keep telling myself that. Let's use the white, I think for the white one. So I've got some black paint here. Just some watercolor black paper. Okay, so at the moment, it's seeming really, I don't know if this is fair to say, but watery before trying it, but. Ooh, okay, not bad. It's not super opaque and it does work more like an inkwood, as you would expect. But it's pretty nice. At the moment, I'm preferring the black, but this is really nice for, you know, if you wanna draw on black paper or if you wanna do highlights and stuff, this is probably quite a nice thing to have. Let's see how it goes over the black, actually. It's kinda cool. It kinda works, but maybe I could soften some of the lines with the white. Ignore the awful drawings, but yeah, it works fine. I think I'm not gonna really use it too much. I'm definitely focusing more on the black. So let's just keep doodling. As far as the comic is going, guys, I've nearly, nearly finished it. I've just decided to add a few more pages because I thought it would round out the story a little bit more. So at the moment, it was 32 pages roughly and now it's roughly like 34, 35. But yeah, so just working on that and it's been really fun. I actually got, I went on a work trip and then I got really ill after the work trip. I got like a really bad flu and I was just in bed for like a week and a half and it really sucked because I felt like it's a really critical time for me and my work schedule, my work work and my personal work to be honest. So kinda sucked, kinda sucked to get ill. It sucks to get ill, but it also sucks to get ill when you're at a critical moment of making a comic that you wanna send out to everyone in Thai for Halloween. So yeah, that wasn't that fun to be honest, but I'm feeling better now and I'm ready to keep going and keep working, working, working. It's getting there, guys. It's super getting there and I'm so excited. I'm actually going to a Bristol Comic Expo next week. If you're around, you can look that up. I'll link it down below, actually. Bristol Comic Expo, so I'm gonna be there and if you live in Bristol, maybe come check it out. Come meet me and see my wares, I guess. If you're around, that would be really cool and I'm excited because I haven't really done any UK Comic-Cons before. The only Comic-Con I've really done is the one in Gibraltar. Oops. And yeah, so it's very different, I think. I'm excited. It's kind of my test run as well for Fort Bubble, which is a big, massive Comic-Con in Leeds. It's kind of like an indie Comic-Con. So there's lots of like indie vibes, lots of like, you know, when I say indie, I mean like small press, single people, business, you know, or just people like me just, you know, working in comics at home as a hobby. So it's really nice. It's gonna be really cool to watch and be like inspired by other people as well because it's just like a meeting of lots of really talented people in one room when you see all their art stuff and all their comics and their work and it can be so inspiring. I always get so inspired when I go to Comic-Con, like when I say it first time, going to Comic-Con, I mean exhibiting. I've been to a few Comic-Cons just as a person who enjoys buying comics and not just selling them and making them. So yeah, I just can't wait to get that like inspiration kick. I feel like it always happens when you see other people's working hard and like being inspired by their work is always so fun. I just love it. I just, yeah, I guess it's kind of like what YouTube does for me as well is I really like to watch other people's channels to get inspired and it helps me work. And I don't know if I do that for people. I know that I've been told that I do that for a couple of people, but it's always so nice to hear because that's why I watch YouTube videos and stuff. It's like I really like to be inspired by people. I always get really inspired when I see people working really hard as well. What we see is not necessarily what's actually happening behind the scenes. We see like a very curated version of what's happening but it's still nice because you watch it, you're like, I want to have that life. I want to be like super productive like that. And we're not always productive. These are, these are different, aren't they? Some days are more productive than others. Some weeks are more productive than others and that's fine. So just remember that, guys, that not everything you see is the truth. All these creative people are all struggling in different ways. And yeah, sorry, that was a bit deep, but yeah. Like in this pen, I feel like I've warmed up a bit more. This drawing on this side feels a lot more loose than the other ones. So I feel like I'm getting into the groove. I would love to do another comic just using nib and ink because I feel like, yeah, like I said, it does give like a quality that you can't really get otherwise. Yeah, like in these, these inks now, I feel like I've definitely warmed up and just loosened up. I really want to check if they work with alcohol markers and watercolors as well. When I say they, I mean the inks, obviously. Also, another thing you could do is use a brush with inks. I've heard like, that's what they do over at Marvel comics and stuff, and that just sounds crazy to me because the amount of like, I don't know, control of the brush that you would need is insane, but obviously people over at Marvel are probably very good at what they do comics-wise. They get to work on comics all day, every day. So, you know, more power to them. I really love using like, watered down inks as well. I used to put, you know, there's like, travel brushes where they have the water inside. And I know that's not everyone's favorite because you can't really like control the water, but if you put like, a little bit of ink in there, you can get like a really nice inky brush to just layer down like shadows and stuff on the go. And I do like that. Yeah, we can just use some shadows now with this brush on the face. Using the brush is quite addictive because you can get like a really nice flow of ink. Okay, well yeah, the inks are very nice. That's the point of this video. This is what the inks are looking like. And I'm just gonna see if it smudges the ink. And I really hope it doesn't because I like this drawing. It does a bit, I think. I'm pretty sure it did smudge then. Yeah, it definitely doesn't work with alcohol markers but that's okay because sometimes that happens, you could still use them and just like be careful where you place the alcohol markers. But yeah, we could use that to our advantage as well because you could always play with what you're doing with the alcohol markers and the ink. I mean, yeah, just having fun doesn't really make sense to use alcohol markers. Anyway, with just ink, it's kind of a difficult one to do and I found out I prefer to use pencils in a way with alcohol markers. Sure, it's not a big deal but it would be nice if it worked. And you just need some like watercolor now. So just grabbed my cute little watercolor set here and let's see if it works. I hope so, it'll be nice. I feel like I really need some new brushes but all my brushes are just like destroyed a bit. And that's on me but I need to get some new ones. Okay, let's just try this like blue because we've already got some blue coming through from the other page here. Let's see if it works. It seems to not be shifting, which is exciting because that means you can use watercolors with this ink without it smudging. It seems to be mixing well. Just like going over a layer, going over the inks with this color is kind of nice as well. Look at this brush, look how awful this brush is. Definitely needs some new ones. If anyone wants to sponsor me getting some new brushes, feel free to message me. I do it for the free arts of the eyes, guys. Okay, let's just let it be known. Yeah, this looks really nice I think. Let's just move. So there you go. It works with watercolors. It looks quite nicely with these still ones because it's going and staying on top of the black which is an interesting, I don't know what I was gonna say, an interesting look, an interesting result. Honestly, I don't know what I was gonna say. I'm like, hmm, where are my words? Okay, so here is a blob of white. Let's see. Ooh, it's kind of working really thickly with the brush. And it's quite opaque with the brush. So maybe I just didn't have a thick enough layer of it before. I don't know what I'm doing now with this white, but it's just fun to experiment. With it going down over the watercolor, it's gone really like thick. I'm gonna stop before I just make a massive mess all over this page. And also guess what I did? I mixed up the lids. If anyone caught that, well done, because I did not, but I'm so clever. I mixed up the lids to the black and white. So now the white is slightly off white. Don't we just love that for me? Isn't that just amazing? How dumb am I? That should be fine. Let's not talk about it. Let's just move on to the end of the video. Thank you again to BetterHelp for being in partner with this video. And I hope that it will help someone out there also. But thanks for watching, guys. And please give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it. And I will see you next time. Bye.