Inking note · 2025-09-18
Groot’s ink weight on newsprint-cream stock
When a companion folio has to stand next to a cosmic-issue NFT, the plant-line needs more mass than the screen suggests. A short note on brush vs nib for bark.
Groot is a problem on cream stock. On the NFT comic, a thin digital brush can carry bark because the screen adds contrast. On the companion folio, that same line collapses into the newsprint-cream and Groot becomes a stain behind Rocket.
We ink bark with a brush, not a nib, then hit the deepest splits with a second pass after the first has dried. The folio press still loses a little of that mass, which is why Helen Crowe’s Nottingham folio looks duller in Drax’s red and slightly softer in Groot’s chest. Ilya tells every folio client this before they choose interiors.
If your commission is Groot-heavy, mark those pages for the folio at colour lock. Do not pick only splashes. A quiet mid-issue page with Groot holding a dying houseplant on the Milano is where the ink weight either works or does not.
We keep a strip of failed bark tests pinned above the lightbox. Visitors are welcome to look. Please do not pull the pins; the rust stains are part of the record.