Aug 15

Here is the Higgins. I think the difference between the straight "Design black" (a.k.a. just waterfproof black) and the "Black Magic" is that Black Magic gives a glossier finish and is a fraction more resilient and waterproof than Design. It is also more viscous, and smells much more like ammonia (higher shellac?).


These are the ones I just bought and I am VERY happy with both.

Luma white watercolor: extremely viscous ( gouache-like ) and smells like gouache too, but,(!) and here comes the awesome part. That bleed proof label ain't no joke. This stuff is WHITE. I brushed it over wet black ink in that picture and you can see it barely grayed it down. It is absolutely, without question, bad ass. Unfortunately non-waterproof, but you can't have it all.

Pro Black. Smells and feels like black acrylic. More viscous than Black magic but still liquid. Even more glossy. And really, really opaque and SUPREMELY waterproof. It has a funny cracking texture when dry if you lay it on too thick and it doesnt work too well over other media, but lay it on paper and it's ironclad, as far as I can tell.

Both are a pleasure to work with.






This was done to try the new inks. I bought a "ProBlack" and and "Luma" white watercolor.

The first pic is the unadulterated scan. You can see all the messy parts that happened because I didn't want to wait for the materials to dry. The pic on the left is as close to a "comic" black and white as I could get it. it's hard to get smooth edges in duotone when your scan is so anti-aliased. I wonder how the pros do it.