exploring and experimenting 1, first steps

i've been experimenting with different traditional media for various reasons since sometime around june of last year, and i've recently started approaching it to practice a lot more, so i'm deciding to spend some time today doing a round-up of my thoughts and practice.

when i started, i had a goal to use mostly gel pens. they're capable of making nice, scratchy blending that looks vaguely painterly, while maintaining really bright neon colors... the rainbows in the last panel of the above comic are gel pen work.
but that panel has a mix of other techniques in it too. other examples of exclusively gel pen work: 

i gave up on the idea for a while due to the extenuating circumstances of my real life, and also because the medium wasn't what i expected it to be. i thought, as an artist who's a little bit notorious for being able to put out a lot because i don't need to sketch, that drawing in exclusively permanent ink, would be easy. it wasn't.
moreover, it was harder than i thought to cover up mistakes once they were made. i'd bought a nice pack of white gels just for this purpose, and realized once they dry, they're only semi-opaque.

so i've started using paint pens more in tandem with the gel pens, and my ultimate goal is to be able to use a mix of ink washes (like watercolors, but with ink from things like a dip well, from markers, acrylic inks for screen printing, etc.) and paint pens. i haven't really found how to stylize all of them together harmoniously yet, but i'll go over the ink washing first, since it's shorter.

these are actually the first ink washes i'd ever done. i didn't get to experiment with media i had interest in a lot as a kid or teenager, so something like this was brand new to me, yet i feel very enamored with the idea.

the first thing i learned is that you need paper meant to sustain wet media, unlike pencil, which can work on almost any kind of paper. the above example was done on some shitty cheap scrap paper, so i told myself it was probably only up from there.
i only ever planned to use ink washes in tandem with the splashes of brightness gel pens can offer, so the lines are drawn in gel pen.
i will make a note here that gel pens are basically fancy rollerball pens, and i do in fact use writing pens to do a lot of the black lining on my art. if you've ever used a clicking pen that surprised you with how smooth it wrote, you were probably writing with a rollerball instead of the usual ballpoint by accident.
the difference between rollerball and ballpoint pens is actually not their tips, but the ink they use -- gel, and rollerball pens, use water-based ink. paints and ballpoint pen commonly use ink that's oil-based instead, because it dries faster and doesn't smear. this is visible if you look at how iridescent writing in ballpoint is, just like an oil puddle on pavement.
with that said, water-based ink means it's water-soluble. when doing ink washes, i noticed that the color of the lines would run into the wash and create a sort of iridescent-looking mix of the 2 tones, which i really enjoyed.
however, that doesn't mean you can't use ink washes over gel pen without smearing your pretty lines -- it's just a little tricky. gel is still wet, even when it feels dry to your hand. i usually let mine dry overnight, whereas when i'm working with ink washes and paint, i know i can go over it with more media when no pigment comes back on my hand from touching it (remember, the oils on your hand are water-repellent, and this applies to water-based ink too).

both of these are gel pen with washes applied over the dried pigment (and then wet gel applied over the freshly dried ink wash).
i should also note for both of these that i was using a piece of cardboard as a palette. essentially i was rubbing cheap kid's markers onto a piece of cardboard, wetting a paint brush, and then rubbing it only the marker spot, then doing the wash that way. i was really thrilled with the fact that my dumb idea worked at the time, because it meant i could get cool effects with very cheap supplies.
i did buy a nice $8 plastic palette when i went on a supply run this month, and the vibrancy of the wash testing from those blew these little pastely washes out of the water:

i haven't experimented yet with mixing colors (they're best mixed while still wet for that vibrant look instead of just like an overlay of color), because of these paint markers i got, which were really why i've been doing a lot more with them...

they have a very specific look to them... they're water-based and dry fast. all of these are actually a mix of the paint markers and the gel pen -- i only have about 7 basic colors with the paint markers, and then i get more complex colors by using the ~20-30 second window where they stay wet to mix and blend with a gel pen.
in addition to the 10 basic colors... i have 3 different white ones specifically for mixing and "erasing" ink spots. that part specifically has been such a relief from the burden of not being able to make a mistake without bending the rest of my method around it. best of all (to me), gel pen goes over the paint of these as if it was just paper itself.
the shine on the frame of ipsey's glasses their is the white gel pen over black paint, even, which, over dried rollerball ink, i would expect to come out a dark, blurry grey.
they're bright, obnoxious, and easily fixed, which is exactly what i love in a medium. i haven't really figured out how to make this mesh with the ink wash style of coloring... i tried to do one comic in just ink washes first, and then fixing it up with gel and paint... the second half of that process kind of totally consumed the wash's presence:

i haven't tried putting another wash over the paint, although i probably will eventually. i'm curious if it will reactivate the pigment or not, as water-based paint. i'm also thinking next time i make a supply run, i'll probably buy some white acrylic ink to experiment with "eraser washes" or something...
i also noticed i haven't done much more than paint headshots with these markers, so i'm thinking their applicability once the novelty wears off won't be so broad. the tips are unwieldy and big for doing small precise comic panels (there ARE smaller sizes, though), and i'm not sure how well they'll take to doing whole backgrounds in the same bright style.

anyway, that's my experience so far.
i like how the general feel of each of these media FEELS, but i'm not sure how to make them all combine in the right way yet... when i started, i thought i would be doing a kind of vaguely rainbow, two-tone hazy in the washes with occasional bursts of color for emphasis, but it was just a concept, and my concepts tend to forget some things about the application to physical space.
i've gotten some writing done for EYHO, but not enough that i feel it's worth posting about, i'll try to remember to touch that again and also do a progress shot of a small comic to show the different layers once i get a little more confident!