...and boys are my arms tired. I've got to say that I've never enjoyed any new art supply purchase so much. I find myself wanting to make mistakes in my inking just so I can buzz them away. Obviously there's something very, very wrong with me. Wielding this great, buzzing thing, this honest-to-god power tool for cartoonists, I feel like a dowager playing with her first vibrator.

Is there therapy available for people like me?

Lieber

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My web page: www.geocities.com/SoHo/Museum/8914/
Preview of WHITEOUT #1 at www.easystreet.com/~kodiak/Whiteout.html
WHITEOUT #4 now in stores. An on-going follow-up series is in the works.

And I once thought an electric toothbrush was the height of decadence.

Quack, Don

Maybe if you use it as a vibrator you won't use it for drawing as much. I like sticking them in my ear myself.

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TAK

Erotic and tactile/auditory uses aside, an electric eraser can be an invaluable tool. It sure keeps pages clean you can also use it for great effects. The great underground cartoonist Rick Griffin used to use the electric eraser in conjunction with zip-a-tone shading-film. He'd afix a zip film to a drawing as one normally would, then he'd go in and knock out some of the zip with the eraser. Then he'd add another shade of film on top of the one he'd just erased. This created some very striking graduated tone effects. Tom Yeates often uses one for highlighting already-inked figures and textures. In the crosshatch technique I'm currently developing, I've been using the eraser a lot, too. I build up thick background clouds with pen, then knock areas of it back with the e-eraser, then go back in with more crosshatching. I repeat this process for as long as the paper holds up, and have gotten some very interesting, steamy effects. It's also a good technique to use for mountains and rocks. Taking a tip from Yeates, I use the electric eraser a lot to create highlights and sunglints when I'm drawing glass or metal.

I'm really looking forward to using the thing creatively. I've a fine, lurid scene in a meat locker coming up that should give me several chances to lift unwholesome, bony highlights from brackish dark brushwork.
And settings in the WHITEOUT sequel may include fogbound London and the Afghan desert, both of which should offer great opportunities for buzzing out striking areas of gently graded white.

Using it on zip offers up a bunch of other great possibilities. I'm looking forward to trying this.

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My web page: www.geocities.com/SoHo/Museum/8914/
Preview of WHITEOUT #1 at www.easystreet.com/~kodiak/Whiteout.html
WHITEOUT #4 now in stores. An on-going follow-up series is in the works.

I've got this horrible picture in my head of you (Steve) sitting there dreaming up whole issues set in junkyards and abbatoirs so that you can just dump the ink on the page and fire up the electric eraser. [img]/resources/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

...or are you doing that now?

....Steve? umm....whats that buzzing noise?

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Justin Savage
President/Editor/Web-bozo
Sabre's Edge
www.sabresedge.com

An electric eraser has to be one of the best investments an artist can make. I've got this beat up old Alvin e.r. I've been using since 1983. It was the first "big" art purchase I made (a whopping $50 or so)after starting work on Swamp Thing. This thing has been used, misused, abused, and defiled more times and in more ways than I care to admit to. It's completely encrusted with ink and has been dropped on the concrete floor of my studio countless times, and it still works as good as the day I bought it. I've used it for just about every trick imaginable over the years, including the Rick Griffin zip-a-tone technique that Tim Truman mentioned (which, I might add, only works with Letraset zip. Letraset patterns are printed on TOP of the film, making for easy erasure). Steve, don't worry too much about becoming addicted to it ... like anything else, once you've explored enough possibilities with it, you'll only use it when necessary. And if you're like me, you'll get real tired of dealing with all that eraser dust, too. It has a tendency to accumulate and get into everything if you don't clear it away quickly. Anymore, I mainly use the e.r. for blasting out mistakes and to pick out highlights here and there. The one other thing I should mention is that the only eraser tips I've ever found useful are the gray ink-erasing tips. The pink ones leave a faint pink stain on the paper and the plastic white ones wear down in a very weird way, making it a real pain to work with. All said, I can't imagine life without one of these suckers.

I first bought the electric eraser on the advise of a friend who convinced me that erasing inked mistakes was easier than whiting them out, but he neglected to mention that I'd need to use a specific type of eraser.

I went through about nine inches of the white "magic rub" type with nary a fade in the ink, let alone a clean new surface to work on. I made a quick phone call to my friend and confirmed that there are, in fact, different types of erasers available.

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My web page: www.geocities.com/SoHo/Museum/8914/
Preview of WHITEOUT #1 at www.easystreet.com/~kodiak/Whiteout.html
WHITEOUT #4 now in stores. An on-going follow-up series is in the works.

Methinks I spoke too soon concerning the uselessness of those white plastic erasers. Lately, I've been doing some sketches on Canson Mi-Tientes toned paper using ink-washes and white colored pencils. I accidentally discovered that those white plastic erasers are perfect for working into and removing colored pencil. What's really strange is the eraser doesn't seem to wear down at all. I was really pleased to find a new way to use the electric eraser, since the only thing I've ever used it for is ink-erasing. If you work with colored pencils at all, give it a try and you might be pleasantly surprised.