For a long time now, I've been in love with detailed, lovingly-rendered black & white work done in pen & ink. There's something very bony, sharp and visceral about the medium; it can be almost gothic and grotesque, yet undeniably beautiful and fascinatingly detailed. The care put into some of this work is absolutely admirable, especially in the face of all the quickly-done art, both illustratorial and gallery-oriented, that we see every day. Quick and simple art has its place, but the beauty of the ornate is a very special thing indeed, and it's important to honor this precious form.

It just so happens that we have some wonderful Deviants right here on DA doing amazing detail work in pen and ink! Allow me to share some with you.

~pinkjellyo is only 18 years old, yet already she's producing and publishing her gorgeously morbid manga in her home country of Singapore. Her work is deeply, admirably detailed; her lines are fluid and complex. In stepping into one of her pieces, one steps into a nightmarish dream world - a world like a spiderweb, where everything is crawling with an almost living mass of pseudo-organic ornamentation. Much of her work falls into the yaoi genre, yet it never takes on the predictable, glittery blandness that the work of starry-eyed yaoi fangirls can tend to have. Her devotion to her work is astounding for her age, and the speed at which she is able to produce makes me quite frankly green with envy.


~AbXynthetic is a 21-year-old ballpoint pen warrior from Krakow, Poland whose work is deeply intricate, morbidly surreal and lovingly rendered. Figures, bizarre creatures and amorphous shapes emerge from a dense spiderweb, an entanglement pulsing with emotion and life. Much of her work seems to speak of emotional entanglement, fantastical creatures and forms caught in the ever-complicating strangling web of real life. Comparisons could be drawn with Giger, and I'm sure they have been, but ~AbXynthetic's work is very much her own. She's hardly a one-trick pony, either; she always seems to be on the artistic move, exploring photography, collage and god only knows what else.


*Hello-Dali is even younger than the previous two - only 17 years old - but unlike either of them, her work has a polished cleanliness that hearkens back to Victorian naturalists' drawings. She smoothly integrates her pen & ink with sneakily-applied watercolor and pencil, giving her drawings a warmth and dimensionality unheard of in most black & white pen & ink work. Her photographs reveal a beautiful, smiling, and dare I say, even "normal"-looking girl; she appears for all intents and purposes to be satisfied with life, which makes for a refreshing change in her approach to art from the usual morbid obsessiveness characteristic of this sort of work. Her subject matter mixes the monumental and personal aspects of nature, smoothly integrating consideration of massiveness, solidity and huge concepts like Time with contemplation on a beautiful fish or bird in its native environment. She repeatedly returns to the subjects of mythical guardian beings and ducks, reflecting these two sides of her interest in nature.


*mulduan, a penmeister from Puerto Rico, seems to spit a sort of surreal, intuitive and mildly morbid whimsy with every drawing he does. His works obviously take a great deal of time and effort, yet there's a fluid lightness about them; he's obviously having a great deal of fun, and it shows. Cartoonish, distorted forms burst and spin with life. Tiny arrows and zooming lines zing and zag this way and that, and fluid masses like some sort of lively goo wrap themselves stubbornly around every corner of form. There's something Gaudi-like about it; he *could* adhere to the time-tested techniques of popular and "proper" art, but he doesn't. He doesn't, and he creates virtuosic and amazing pieces all the same. His black & white work is handsomely complemented by shining jewel-like orbs, done in spot colors of red, blue and green; they serve to anchor the pieces, while highlighting all of the beautiful work that's *not* in color.


Last and most probably least, I'd like to poke my little head in and show y'all a little bit of the pen & ink work that I've done. It's nothing compared to these guys, but I hope you'll like it: