Day: January 10, 2018

WHAT IS IT?

The Inkwell Awards invites you to the eighth annual Joe Sinnott Inking Challenge. With his approval and support, we have taken a couple of his pencil art fundraising donations and converted them to bluelines for inking. 

We’ve chosen ink artists who are A) part of our organization, B) Inkwell-Award recipients, or C) notable for their career inkwork, but any inker can take part, including novices. Some of you who missed previous Challenges asked to be added to the list and you are included here.

For fundraising and educational purposes, would you be willing to participate in inking one or both of these pieces? We’ll take the final images and post them on our Comic Art Fans gallery for comparison to Joe’s initial pencil art to showcase to the public the contributions and talents of ink artists. These pieces would also be auctioned off to raise funds for our vital operational needs and philanthropic programs. These include: 

—The Dave Simons Inkwell Memorial Scholarship Fund to the Kubert School; 

—The COMPliments Program (allowing HoF inkers who are not receiving collections of their work from publishers to receive them through us instead);

—Expenses for our live awards ceremony every June at Heroes Con, such as purchasing winners’ trophies, flights for award recipients, etc.

Thanks to generous artists like you, last year’s successful program (not counting the Neal Adams Spotlight spin-off) brought in over $2,100 and this year we anticipate an even better outcome. You can see samples of donations from our previous years at our Comic Art Fans gallery (top left-labeled links): http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryDetail.asp?GCat=35444

ALL PROCEEDS RAISED go 100% to the non-profit and the only members paid for any services are legal, accounting and spokesmodels, as needed. NO Inkwell Committee Members or Volunteers have EVER received payment for their services.

WHAT TO DO?

If you are interested in contributing please REPLY back to myself <dmralmond@gmail.com> and senior contributor Tom Schloendorn <tom_schloendorna4@comcast.net> to confirm that you have the tools/capabilities to print up a hi-res blueline file on 11×17 2-ply Strathmore vellum board to ship back to me and we will promptly email you the hi-res file of either one or both images– please specify WHICH attached character you want. Files will usually be emailed within 24 hours of requests. (THE SAMPLES BELOW ARE LO-RES SIMPLY FOR REFERENCE ONLY). If you don’t have the printing capabilities and are an established, published professional but you’d like us to ship either or both pages of bluelined boards to you, please forward your shipping address to us in your reply. 

ONCE YOU ARE FINISHED, PLEASE EMAIL ME A 300dpi SCAN OF YOUR WORK BEFORE SHIPPING THE PAGE if you want to be included in any subsequent book collections.

If you cannot participate we totally understand about your busy schedules and lives making it a challenge but PLEASE LMK ASAP, REGARDLESS (if we do this again, we’d probably touch base with you again…BUT NOT IF YOU DIDN’T RESPOND). Should you know of another notable inker willing to participate, please pass on their email address so we can invite them; however, we have the right to not include a request and please be aware that no work is guaranteed to be included in our subsequent book collection. But to be eligible for the book you MUST send us a 300ppi hi-res scan at full size upon completion and before shipping. We will be following-up with friendly reminders prior to the deadline. 

WHAT’S THE DEADLINE?

The deadline is MONDAY, April 2, 2018 (12+ weeks). THE ART MUST BE SHIPPED AND RECEIVED by Mark Sinnott at:

Mark Sinnott

Joe Sinnott Inking Challenge

44 Spaulding Lane

Saugerties, NY 12477

***Joe Sinnott will sign every page. If you leave his blueline signature blank, he will sign it there (but it won’t be in the scan if used in the book). If you ink in his sig, he will sign the page outside the borders or wherever there is a good spot. Mark Sinnott will subsequently ship them to me for the auctions, which will run subsequent to that in 2-4 waves in April. (The less-inclusive Erik Larsen Spotlight Challenge art will run in late February-early March.)

SPECIFIC INKING NOTES: You can ink it ‘as is’ or reinterpret it, bringing something extra to the table….this year we will have a tightly-drawn LOKI and a loosely-drawn HELA.  You are encouraged to ink the logos to motivate more auction bids but you don’t have to.

Please LMK if you have any questions.

SUMMARY:

* reply to myself AND Tom if interested and request the hi-res blue line file(s) to be emailed or (vets only) the blueline print up(s) to be mailed with your shipping address.

* ship the art back upon completion to the Mark Sinnott address above. After that you can post it online publicly as long as you plug that (you may copy/paste): “It’s for the 8th JOE SINNOTT INKING CHALLENGE for the INKWELL AWARDS (https://inkwellawards.com) to promote and educate about the art form of inking and to raise funds for their non-profit organization and their annual Dave Simons Inkwell Memorial Scholarship Fund to the Kubert School.” (NOTE: Again, any art that is not hi-res scanned can NOT be scanned by us and will NOT used in a book.)

* we will be happy to mail you tax-exempt receipts upon request for your contribution.

* we will contact you later if we plan to include you in the book collection for the previous year’s contributions and get your bio/photo/comment information.

THANK YOU for your time, effort, and support, especially those who have been involved in this program for several years (you know who you are!).

Sincerely,

Bob Almond, director: The Inkwell Awards (w/ special thanks to asst director Mike Pascale)