i totally do mine with mouse pen, but ive never tried scanning from drawings. I can imagine its easyer to draw some types of lines on paper but im such a creature of habbit (nut) i cant turn back to pen and paper, but than ive only just started drawing again so im pretty clueless really(I havent drawb since sixth form). I use mainly photoshop.

I got a question. I know u know this sub, what resolution and dimensions do you usually make a banner? mine always seems to come out really small or its just too big a file.

72 dpi .jpg
10 quality

I will never ever do comics the old way again. ...well, aside from pencilwork. But no inks or colors on paper! I'm entirely dependant upon Photoshop!

carly_mizzou
Sweet! I'm glad to see people still "draw" ^_^
Silentkitty> whoa! that would take me years to do. How was the "learning curve" on that project? it looks really nice!

Hmmmmm....oh, what kinda pens do peeps tend to ink with? I do g-tip and crowquill dip pens, but I'm looking to get away from them (too messy!)

Hoorah! (sorry, so curious!)

Long live the old school!

I have only today returned to inking with a brush after a three year layoff. These past two months I have experimented with using various brands of artist's ink markers , after discovering that using a digital application with a mouse for inking was waaaaaaaaay time consuming. But I decided that I just do not like the effects that these ink markers have on my work. The lines turn brown even though the claims are that the ink is permanent black. Sheesh!

So today I finally got enough work penciled to justify me blowing the dust off my brushes and uncapping the many years old bottle of ink. At first the results looked rough and blotchy, but with several hours worth of effort . . . okay, the results still look somewhat rough and blotchy, but less so . . . and I can live with that.


I've always done all my sketching with pencil on paper. The only changes I've made over the years is to finally switch over from dedicated and shade-graded 'artist's pencils' to cheap mechanical pencils bought by the half dozen at the local drugstore.

I learned the rudiments of digital work only during the last six months or so, and I use a digital application - the GIMP - to scan the inked and colored work, correct lines and color, add text and speech bubbles, and the borders and panels.

I have been experimenting these last few months and so I know what I can accomplish digitally.

Frankly I'm still experimenting with digital work and have no idea how much I may or may not add to the repertoire in the future, but without a digital tablet, it's unlikely that I will do much inking digitally.

So, as of now, I sketch with a mechanical pencil on letter-sized card stock instead of bristol board, I will be inking almost entirely with a sable brush , and add color with anything from water color to acrylics to pastels and map pencils and crayons, depending on the desired effect or my mood at the time.

Although I have one of about every steel pen nib available I stopped using nibs for art work at least three years ago. I may return to them some day, but since I can do most of the same things with a brush , and that tool holds much more ink per dip, I've decided that I'm comfortable using a brush for the majority of my ink work for the future.

Back in the day, I used fine Crowquills for picky line work, a Hunt 512 for thicker lines, and a Speedball B-5 for lettering. Um . . . that is, that was mostly the last combination that I settled on. Oh yes, initially my favorite pen nib for medium line work was a Hunt 513, but THEY STOPPED CARRYING THEM in my local art stores, and as I wasn't comfortable enough with the internet back then to see if any were still available I started weaning myself from nib usage. That was when I first began using a brush for cartooning work, but that was for only a month or two as I recall.

I am a bit surprised to pick up a brush after all these years and feel comfortable inking with it. Mind you, the results are not what anyone would call outstanding.

Anyway, all of this is in way of building up a supply of pages so that I can launch my comic book. I hope to have something up by next week, but that depends on how much time I can devote to the effort.

Charleyhorse

Ha! I meant to have a point; not just blather on about what I am doing. My point is that all I really care about is achieving the maximum amount of efficiency in blending old school art work with digital applications. I don't have any preferences one way or the other. I'm just experimenting to discover what works best for me in the here and now. I am frequently struck with awe when looking at the art work produced by both old school and digital artists. It's easy to be humble when so many people on DrunkDuck are so darn good at what they do!

Straight up digital. From sketching, to inking, to coloring, it's all done in Photoshop. It's way time consuming to do things by hand. In addition, my scanner is pretty crappy. My tablet is pretty small, but it's serviceable.

subcultured
they're teleporting
i first got interested by gantz from its anime
it's based off a manga, which is so much better than the anime
the anime ended it really stupidly. the gantz manga is still going

its bloody

Yep - still going. And I can't speak badly of the anime - I personally love it, and it's the first series I ever got a recurring voiceacting role in. :)

Gantz is totally awesome, I saw how they made the manga and I wanted to try making Fakkio Edit that way. what I did instead was use 3D studios max and a combination of photoshop and just old fashion hand to pencil combat.

Ever seen Appleseed? I really like how they did the cell shading effects and how real and unreal it made the world look. So I decided to give my hand a shot at it.

Its kinda hard... anyways, What I did with the backgrounds for FE was use two layers of background, the first layer is done in 3D, cell shaded, then I pose it. The second layer is photoshop, I draw a quick sketch background with a tablet then match image and texture to the shape and general angle.

After that I combine it with the layer I made in 3D, then I scan from whatever I draw and thats the final layer.

This method is entirely experimental, I'd venture to say I still suck at it. But its fun and different. I've seen a couple of partially 3DCG comics on the net. I just wanted to try something new I guess.

aside from that, I just sketch.

I draw everything in Illustrator. I used to draw with a mouse, but nasty carpal tunnel problems made me break down and learn to use a tablet - which helped a lot.

Um, so how does one get such hard working assistants?

Mine is just pencil, because I drew it and kept my pages in a 3-ring binder for my friends. When I finally gave into peer pressure and started uploading, I used Paint Shop Pro to change the contrast, erase smudges, and replace my handwriting with font.

I draw my thumbnails digitally, the draw the final pencils over those digitally too. When this low-res sketch is completed I print it out and ink it via my lightbox with fineliners. Then it gets scanned in at 600dpi, toned and lettered digitally.

The main reason I started inking traditionally was because it's a freaking pain to ink at 600dpi on the computer. While I can ink a page traditionally in about 40mins to an hour it might take three times that for me to do it on the computer... partly because the "undo" button gives you the scope to be absolutely perfectionist with it but also because my damn comp often freezes up when I'm working on large images. Sometimes I can be waiting 15-20 minutes while Photoshop sorts it's head from it's arse... and by that time I've usually sat down with a cup of tea in front of the telly and totally got out of the mood for drawing. ^^;

Plus it's good to have a hardcopy of your work~ a piece of paper can't crash, become corrupted, refuse to save or get accidentally deleted... thank christ. DX

wyldflowa
The main reason I started inking traditionally was because it's a freaking pain to ink at 600dpi

The main reason you scan ink at 600dpi is to make sure the lines are smooth. There is no earthly reason to actually digitally ink at 600dpi because even at 200dpi your digital inking will be smoother than pen inking! :)

People just don't "get it" when it comes to digital... Don't worry though, you're not alone, it's a common misconception. Basically scanned work HAS to be scanned in at super high resolution so that it transfers well to digital. If the work STARTS OFF digitally then you ONLY need to work at 300dpi to be great quality.

Regular HB for pencil work. Quill, brush and mechanical pens and markers for inking and lettering. Computer for making black look black and white look white. Plus all touch ups as needed.

I draw and letter everything by hand and tehn touch it up and draw the panels on the computer. Also whenever I have coloured updates they are hand drawn and coloured in photoshop with a wacom tablet.

ozoneocean
The main reason you scan ink at 600dpi is to make sure the lines are smooth. There is no earthly reason to actually digitally ink at 600dpi because even at 200dpi your digital inking will be smoother than pen inking! :)

People just don't "get it" when it comes to digital... Don't worry though, you're not alone, it's a common misconception. Basically scanned work HAS to be scanned in at super high resolution so that it transfers well to digital. If the work STARTS OFF digitally then you ONLY need to work at 300dpi to be great quality.

Oh wow, I didn't know that... XD I knew you could resize things easily if they're vectors but I thought raster images went all horrible if you made them bigger. The only vector-y programs I know are Flash and Illustrator and they're hard to use/aren't Photoshop. ^^;

I dunno... what I'm doing works well for me right now~ if I didn't ink traditionally I'd be on the computer 24/7 plus I quite like the human touch (read: wobbly lines) it gives my work~ XD

wyldflowa
Oh wow, I didn't know that... XD I knew you could resize things easily if they're vectors but I thought raster images went all horrible if you made them bigger.

That's true. They DO lose quality if you make them bigger, but if you work digitaly at 300 dpi and at the page size that you'd like the work printed at then you shouldn't have to size it up.

And then if you did need to size it up from 300dpi at whatever page size, the page can always be reduced to 200dpi and the size increased to something larger... But that's the balance you need to work with. Working on full colour digital files larger than 300dpi with lots of layers and at a large page size can make things slow down for a lot of computers :(
I mean, if you were working on photos that'd be ok since the work involved is basically piffle compared to what a digital artist does... Digital art requires a LOT more from your machine.

I'm 100% digital.
All my art is drawn with a tablet directly in Flash, it's all vector art. That way I can move, resize, change anything I want and don't have to think about such primitive things as resolution :)

The majority of my comics are done in watercolours, I find them good for speedy application and flat colouring. I'm still experimenting with different mediums, though, I've yet to find a particular favourite. I have to start using better paper though, the stuff at the moment is too thin and breaks rather easily. I use GIMP for occasional touch ups when I get careless, and when I don't use my own handwriting I put the speech text in on MS paint.