Digital vs. pen and paper -- a.k.a tools of the trade

[Fabio Ciccone]

Hmm, ok I will ask i would love...love to save the time of pencilling full then inking then scanning, attaching everything yadda yadda..

Anyone have any home brew secrets as to how they got used to sketching with the wacom?

Trying, then trying some more... I do this for months and still get better results with the pencil.

[Td501]

Yeah, seems like the paper/tablet preference varys from person to person. A friend told me I really should first try a tablet before buying one - some folks just don't like 'em, and if I was one of those, purchasing a tablet would be a waste of cash. But I took to it immediately - tablet results were identical to paper results. So you've got the full spectrum out there. Can't think of any particular styles or tricks to improve results when using a tablet (although the aforementioned abilites of copy, flip, resize, etc. can certainly help with consistancy). But as with anything, you get better with practice.

[Rhenny]

Thanks,
I will keep plugging away doing pencilled to paper work as I try to sort this.. I really would like to cut down on all the paper I run through.

[Spuzo22]

I don't use expensive paper or ink on my stuff! I use cheap printing paper! You get so much paper to draw on for so little! I use pens and markers and then scan them in the computer, and touch it up with Photoshop! I use Wacom bamboo tablet just for coloring!

[Boozeathon4billion]

I use different things for different comics. My current comic is done on my tablet b/c the style is quick and simple. On the comic I'm writing and designing for the future, I'm using pencil and paper for the sketches, going over it in darker pencil and or pen, and then touching it up with my tablet in photoshop. It's just hard to be precise enough with a tablet once you're used to pen & paper.

[DarkRubberNeck]

Draw, draw, draw, draw and draw.
For me I have had a tablet for a few years, and though at first I tried to do all my work on puta, I found that I much prefered sketching on paper. I am peeved at that due to the fact that I want to save time and all that, but I figure if I just keep sketching on paper and inking on puta, I will probably improve enough on tablet to eventually be half decent at all digital. Luckily recently I have upgraded from a intous to a cintiq and I can say it is a looooot easier to get used to. Heck I couldn't use my intous once I got used to my cintiq. Now I haven't been able to find a real feeling pencil tool to do my sketches with digitaly lol

[Joel]

I prefer ink and paper. I tried using a tablet itself, but it was really time consuming. Especially with backgrounds.

My peeve with the tablet for backgrounds was not being able to use a ruler for the perspective and all that stuff, which is another reason I prefer ink and paper.
I think that would be different if I had a cintiq, but I don't want to mess up my current setup.

Currently I combine both. I use ink and paper to get the big picture down and everything (the figures and form). I then go into Photoshop and touch up the little details, like the eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and other stuff. And I also fix up any mistake that I've done while I was inking. I then go into coloring and all that other stuff on the tablet.

For inking, I use a lightweight 8.5x11 bristol paper, a mechanical pencil with blue lead, and a faber-castill pitt pen. It used to take up a lot of space, until I swapped my keyboard and mouse for a wireless set. I just throw my keyboard aside, and then boom, I have space to draw on.

And for the tablet, I have a a wacom intous3, wide version, and a dual monitor setup. One monitor has the picture that I'm working on full screened. The other has my color palette, references, other stuff that I might be doing on the side like typing this and browsing the internet.

[Dread]

Since I lack a scanner, I've had to work entirely digital lately. I don't like it as much as traditional penciling/inking and I don't know how to make it emulate that effect either, I wish there was a way to just, ya know, do it.

[Grimm]

We (I partner with someone who's a considerably better artist than I am - I'm the writer, she's the artist) work in hybrid.

She draws on slightly heavyweight paper on 8.5x11 in light pencil, inks with a pen and then we scan with the xerox at work (it emails jpgs) in 300dpi - it effectively zooms to give us a large surface to work with in Photoshop CS3 without being so sensitive that it picks up paper imperfections - PLUS working with those size/dimensions later if we decide to compile our work as a graphic novel we can just collate the pages and do it (most publishing places want 300dpi) and we're good to go. That gives us our outlines.

One of us colors (I'm a bit better at that digitally at the moment than she is just because of the photoshop learning curve, she's just now figuring out the whole layer thing - I've been a graphic artist for years so I've got more practice) and we do all of our coloring/shading in PS (we're using cell shading) with the original sized image. Once that's done and the pics look good we reduce to roughly a third using photoshop's image resize.

THat's for normal art stuff - we've JUST started working on our comic (kor.comicgenesis.com - but at the moment it's ONLY got concept sketches up, nothing is even colored) and we're trying to do our planning in the front so it'll HOPEFULLY (all plans look great until they get carried out ) allow us to produce on a regular schedule. The story (based on a novel I'm trying to publish) is already done so we've got a cast listing for the next several hundred panels.. we're working out all the character "looks" right now so that we don't have to stop every time a new char is introduced and work out their look.

But the process seems to work pretty smooth. I color when she's working on a particularly difficult drawing (or when I get bored. She draws way more material than we use, and I have more free time than her), the one thing that I've noticed when working digital v. paper is that with stuff like hair it's easier (and imho looks better) when the hair is an outline of the overall shape of the hair (like what you see in a cartoon) versus a more realistic looking thing where individual hairs are drawn in - they create fine gaps that are harder/more time consuming to color. If you color on the paper it's not as big of a deal.

What we like about the method is you kinda get the advantages of both - drawing in pencil is pretty forgiving regarding edits (and she draws REALLY light, sometimes I can't even see the lines), Covering it in ink makes it scan well, and doing the color digital lets us keep a nice even color AND if we don't like the colors (we color on a different layer) we can easily just repaint that area in a couple clicks and it's a different color.

*I'M* more comfortable with a mouse on minor edits to the scanned outline (sometimes she doesn't close her shapes all the way) but she likes the tablet (plus she can edit the drawings with the tablet, I'm not NEARLY good enough at drawing to try to "improve" her work ).

But her drawing style and our coloring style is very anime/cell shaded and that technique works well for us (with other projects... I'm hoping the same holds true with the comic once we get it moving).

I don't know if she's ever tried inking with a brush, but I know she uses fairly nice pens (not terribly expensive ones, but on the upper end of the normal office supply pens) and she seems to like it. I paint as a hobby but I can't imagine using brushes for line art, that seems to me like an exercise in frustration (and to those of you who like it - more power to you, I'm definitely impressed). I tried it BRIEFLY and ran screaming back to my pens.

Like I said earlier - we have ALMOST NO experience with comics, so take this with a grain of salt, but it's worked with other non-comic projects. For us, anyways.

However - like a lot of things, most of the stuff you read in these types of forums is subjective based on what people are used to/who they learned from/what fits their artistic style best/etc., so my best suggestion would be to try a bunch of different techniques and see what works for you. I don't think any of the other techniques I've read in here would work better for us (although there's a few tips I might try out just to see) *BUT* I also think that doing it our way wouldn't necessarily work better for someone else's comic (especially one that's going for a more realistic art style). I'd recommend borrowing a tablet from someone rather than buying one just to see if it works for you (better yet - use it on their computer 'cuz they've probably tweaked their settings better than the defaults... our tablet is REALLY touchy until you configure it), unless you've got a lot more money than me to throw at it.

Have fun

SFG

[Xwhy]

It's probably painfully obvious that my comic is totally digital, but then I'm not really a serious artist. I'm doing it for the fun of it and for the students (and some of my friends who think that I've sneaked them into a strip here or there).

[Grey Goo]

Digital at these days. Through my tricks makes my works look like doned with hands. Maybe practiced eye can see they are doned digital..

[Ripnormality]

I found that doing sketches of where I'd like things to go and, in particular, proportions--followed by a scan--worked well; but I've switched over to digital because of time constraints as well as the paper wasting issue.

I think you can make the digital medium work if you treat it more like a print medium: make a "pencil" layer (lower opacity), and then draw over it in "ink" (standard layer).

[Alexan]

I'm getting ready to start drawing a comic and debating this very question. I suspect I'll end up drawing line-art on paper, scanning it, 'inking' it with a tablet, and cel-shading in The Gimp. I could see this becoming a wearisome routine, however.

[Grimm]

Ink it before you scan. We've been having a lot better luck doing it that way than the other way around.

Do what you find easiest/most effective, but in the limited bit I've done (kat's the artist, not me.. I draw for fun, she draws stuff we actually count as production) I've been MUCH more successful if there's ink before I scan.

And drawing in blue pencil instead of grey helps immensely in that phase - a trick I picked up in one of the other threads (can't remember what the exact thread title was, but it was the one where people were talking about "ah ha!" moments...)

SFG

[InvaderScurk]

Reading this thread makes me realize all the options out there that are available if you want to get into the particulars. I have been gradually improving my comic-making process (once my own site gets approved, I could show you some work), but I have essentially used printer paper, a mechanical pencil and ruler for my drawings and a fine tip sharpie to ink in my lines. I've been experimenting with various Photoshop techniques that allow me to preserve the quality of my lines throughout the editing process, but in the long run I'm a fan of drawing the old fashioned way, scanning it in, then editing.

[Phalanx]

And drawing in blue pencil instead of grey helps immensely in that phase - a trick I picked up in one of the other threads (can't remember what the exact thread title was, but it was the one where people were talking about "ah ha!" moments...)

SFG

Hehe this just made my night. Nice to know people are still getting some use out of that old thread.

[Jbrown]

I use traditional tools because I absolutely suck at digital media. I used to have a tablet but there's this feeling of control that I lose, like a piece of my "soul" that I put into my comic work is lost as the data from the tablet is transferred into the computer program.

This probably sounds like the nerdiest thing in the world but I can't explain it any better than that!

[Spaceprincess]

I'm an ink and paper person. I do use CS for coloring and lettering, but prefer to do all my drawing with a pencil. I could do it all digitally but I enjoy using a pencil. Do any of you use illustrator to draw? There's some cool stuff u can do with illustrator though it can be counter intuitive for drawing.

[MattRo]

Hi, I'm new here and found this interesting. I've been reading several web comics lately and noticed some in ink and some digital and honestly as long as the art is good I don't care what it's done in.

For me personally though, I use Macromedia Flash to do my comics. I attempted cartoons and didn't do so well with those and almost got rid of Flash until I recently decided to do comics and it has worked out really well. Plus, at least for me, I seem to draw better with it than with ink and paper.

[DeadCaL]

I'm a bit of a Heathen, I draw all my stuff on extra white copy paper I'm also a bit of a perfectionist so I only ink digitally, as I find it impossible to get the results I want from actual pens. Plus there's no Undo button.

Undo button is God.

Seriously though, having something physical to hold is quite important from my point of view. I can produce a completely realistic sketch with the right software and a graphics tablet, but it's just not the same as something you can show your friends or finish on your lunch break.