for my comic I have used water color paper, which was great, photocopy paper which warps when I color it, but its cheap as hell, and I just got a few thousand sheets from my brother. It was discard paper from the print shop he works at.
If I had cash I would by bristol board or thick(ish) watercolor paper.
I use 70gsm paper in an A4 WH Smiths sketchbook. They're useful for keeping the drawings together, but I the quality can vary from page to page depending on ink absorbtion, which isn't good.
For my more water colour and marker comic, I have to spend a little more for a 220gsm smooth cartridge, just so it won't warp all the time.
I primarily work digital, but when I do traditional work I prefer Strathmore 400 series smooth bristol, though you'll usually catch me using 300 series smooth cause its cheaper and more readily available where I live.
I also have a TON of the Canson "Fanboy" bristol comic boards in various formats that I stockpiled when the line totally failed at Michaels (the only art store in town) and they unloaded it dirt cheap on clearance.
I used to use Bristol board, til I figured out that cardstock worked just as good and was far cheaper. Now I only do the pencils on paper and the rest is digital, so it's printer paper all the way :]
I'm exactly the same... prefer 400 but do 90% or more of my work on 300 series smooth strat. Bristol. I also have a stack of the clearance canson stuff I do work on a smaller size =9x12 normally also I work on 11x17 occasionally.
"mattchee" Said:
I primarily work digital, but when I do traditional work I prefer Strathmore 400 series smooth bristol, though you'll usually catch me using 300 series smooth cause its cheaper and more readily available where I live.
I also have a TON of the Canson "Fanboy" bristol comic boards in various formats that I stockpiled when the line totally failed at Michaels (the only art store in town) and they unloaded it dirt cheap on clearance.
The other day I was surfing around and found some 11 x 17 STRATHMORE pads that were ruled for comics. I think they came in 200, 300, or 500 series (what? no 400?).
Anyhow I was shocked cause I'd been looking for something like that for years. I had kind figured that they didn't do their own because they'd be undercutting people they supply that make a similar product (most notably Blue Line). Maybe its the economy!
Well, what I do know is that I work out of a 8.5" x 11" Bienfang sketchbook. I do the complete lineart on paper then ink it by hand with a pen as well.
I'm about to run out of pages in my sketchbook, so if anyone has any suggestions on good ones I'm all ears. XD
11x14" Strathmore 300 series Bristol. Although their recycled stuff (the green pad) ain't too shabby. I might switch to it!
Man, I'd kind of like a bigger skechbook. But I don't think there's one that can fit on my small scanner. D:
You can always scan half a page at a time and piece it together in photoshop. I go to Kinko's to scan mine, unfortunately- on account of not having a scanner. But with that size they can only scan on one of their copy machines, and have no control over a lot of settings.
But I don't think I could work smaller than that- especially if I'm doin' multi-figure panels. I couldn't work larger either, because it takes long enough to get a page done as it is.
I want to learn to draw much larger somewhere in the future (drawing A4 right now), some huge format... so that then I can release a book in A3 (11.7 × 16.5) format :D
I use A3 scetchbook paper. Lucily I've got a Mustek A3 scanner (dirt cheap and terrible quality) so I don't have to cut my pages up and reasemble them in photoshop.
Right now I use one of the Sketch tablets, but I didn't start the clean pages yet. Might switch to another one then, if I find paper not too expensive that accepts inks as well.
I work mostly digital, but when I gotta' break out the paper for inking I prefer to use Strathmore 500 series plate (smooth) finish. Nothing is better, in my humblest of opinions and Dick Blick sells it for cheap. I also like the Strathmore 400 series plate and rough finishes for inking as well. And for good measure Eon Comic Boards (google them up) are nice too.
For penciling I use whatever is lying around like typing paper or a sketch pad. I also have about 300 sheets of 60 lbs (thin) 11x17 bristol I picked up at a paper supply warehouse. It's crappy for inking but handles pencil ok.