Hand Drawn Vrs Digital

[Wendybird]

Industrialpowers, I was replying to Tentoumushi. Sorry for not specifying. When I made my post I wasn't actually aware there was anything on the second page, so I hadn't even read your post. I try not to reply like I only read the OP, but sometimes I slip.

[IVstudios]

I share a tiny apartment with another human being. A bottle of ink, a brush, some pens, and a pad of paper fit comfortably in it. After five years and maybe 500 pages, my entire archive fits into one standard sized box.

Scanning a page takes, what? Maybe five minutes, if I've been drinking?

We're talking minor inconveniences if we're using the most generous terms. You simply prefer digital.

Non-issues for you then. For me they were the two biggest issues that drove me to convert to digital and keep me form returning to hand drawn. I loath scanning and the box of old comics was a pain in the ass to carry around moving back and forth from college every semester .

[Industrialpowersart]

[quote="Mercury Hat"]I might be reading it wrong but I think wendy was talking to the OP, not you. Don't be so defensive that you fire off when you don't even know if someone's saying something to you or not :I

You're right. It was stated right after my comment and so i jumped to conclusions. I have heard that same comment aimed at me before, and it's good advice, once. I'm becoming excessively defensive because honestly, I HAVE been critted in non crit threads. My patience is wearing thin and I took it out on wendy. Wendy, you have my apologies, whoever you aimed that at. I know you're just being helpful.

[Industrialpowersart]

I was told this weekend that traditional art in webcomics was "dying out." Anyone have opinions on this? I don't believe it. (It was right before a panel were two out of three of the artists did traditional o_O ) I do think digital art is very popular, and I see more coloured comics use digital, but pen + paper and a scanner is still going strong, at the very least.

Yeah and about a hundred and fifty years ago the camera was going to kill painting. In the early eighties, the computer was going to kill paper. Things are not so easy to kill. People use what tools suit them.

[Picpak]

I colour the strip on the computer. Other than that, almost everything is hand-drawn. I tried doing it digital for a while but it looked terrible.

[Yeahduff]

I share a tiny apartment with another human being. A bottle of ink, a brush, some pens, and a pad of paper fit comfortably in it. After five years and maybe 500 pages, my entire archive fits into one standard sized box.

Scanning a page takes, what? Maybe five minutes, if I've been drinking?

We're talking minor inconveniences if we're using the most generous terms. You simply prefer digital.

Non-issues for you then. For me they were the two biggest issues that drove me to convert to digital and keep me form returning to hand drawn. I loath scanning and the box of old comics was a pain in the ass to carry around moving back and forth from college every semester .

What is there to loathe about scanning? The placing the paper on the bed? The need to press a button? I guess the noise it makes is a little annoying, but I always just turn my music up.

And why are you lugging your entire archive around everywhere you go? How big is it? Is one sketchpad really that big a pain?

Fact is, either hand-drawing isn't important to you or you give up far too easily. I'm going with the former.

[Cope]

As a reader, I have no preference. As a guy who draws stuff, I definitely prefer doing the majority of my work on paper.

On a related note, I've found I'm more productive when I'm away from a computer. Damn my Internet addiction.

[IVstudios]

I share a tiny apartment with another human being. A bottle of ink, a brush, some pens, and a pad of paper fit comfortably in it. After five years and maybe 500 pages, my entire archive fits into one standard sized box.

Scanning a page takes, what? Maybe five minutes, if I've been drinking?

We're talking minor inconveniences if we're using the most generous terms. You simply prefer digital.

Non-issues for you then. For me they were the two biggest issues that drove me to convert to digital and keep me form returning to hand drawn. I loath scanning and the box of old comics was a pain in the ass to carry around moving back and forth from college every semester .

What is there to loathe about scanning? The placing the paper on the bed? The need to press a button? I guess the noise it makes is a little annoying, but I always just turn my music up.

And why are you lugging your entire archive around everywhere you go? How big is it? Is one sketchpad really that big a pain?

Fact is, either hand-drawing isn't important to you or you give up far too easily. I'm going with the former.

Are you really going to try and tell my what I'm allowed to find annoying? I hate scanning and that's all there is to know. I took my archive with me when I moved back and forth form college every semester. I couldn't leave it at home because it does me no good if I don't have access to it.

And I when I do a comic by hand I do each panel on an individual piece of paper. Thus making my archive and scanning time about 5-7 times larger than someone who works on a single piece of paper.

So I suppose you could say that "Hand-drawing isn't important" to me in that it's not more important than doing it any other way. I already listed my pros and cons to each method. And in the end my dislike of scanning and the space of a physical archive were deciding factors for me. Just because something isn't important to you doesn't mean it isn't important to me.

[Wendybird]

one sketchpad

I must be doing something wrong. I have buckets of character sketches and notes and reminders that I like to keep available, and I still have consistency issues in my comic because I forgot to carry over a detail from one page to another. I didn't mind carrying my buckets of sketches (different ones then) back and forth every summer when I was in college, but my parents live 20 minutes away from the campus.

Some things just don't work for some people. It might mean their brain is broken, like mine, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're lazy.

[Yeahduff]

I hate scanning and that's all there is to know.

No, this is:

And I when I do a comic by hand I do each panel on an individual piece of paper. Thus making my archive and scanning time about 5-7 times larger than someone who works on a single piece of paper.

Jesus fucking christ, you couldn't mention that a little earlier? OF COURSE you hate scanning and OF COURSE you don't have room for anything. The very center of the discussion here and you throw it out as an aside while getting all defensive.

I concede, if it takes you seven pieces of paper to make one comic, you're probably better off going digital.

Oy.

Anyway, the one sketchbook thing just means that's all you need to make a comic in the span of 3-4 months. The notes and extra sketches will be lying around or on the internet, but all that's indispensible is that archive, which you don't have to carry in its entirety to every temporary residence you might have.

[IVstudios]

Jesus fucking christ, you couldn't mention that a little earlier? OF COURSE you hate scanning and OF COURSE you don't have room for anything. The very center of the discussion here and you throw it out as an aside while getting all defensive.

I just found it a little insulting that you simply assumed the preferences to be so arbitrary and therefore unimportant. And even if it were arbitrary what of it? This entire thread is about personal preference.

[Prettysenshi]

Simmer down boys.

As for hand drawn vs digital, I personally prefer hand drawn, because I'm more of a doodle person myself. Digital for me, is really good for just colored work. But nothing gets my artgasm going like some really good pencil crosshatching. So, whatever.

Honestly, this was said in another thread, but if you suck at hand drawn art, you're probably gonna suck at digital, because its the same concepts applied to different mediums. So I really don't think your work will benefit from either, if you suck altogether. Digital, if anything, either speeds up the process or covers up your lack of competence. I only use digital because I can't really afford art products right now. It's too expensive for my budget right now, but I'd take a Pitt Brush pen and some paper over my tablet any day.

Also, I have bad eyes, so staring at a computer screen for 8 hours can be a bother.

[Yeahduff]

Jesus fucking christ, you couldn't mention that a little earlier? OF COURSE you hate scanning and OF COURSE you don't have room for anything. The very center of the discussion here and you throw it out as an aside while getting all defensive.

I just found it a little insulting that you simply assumed the preferences to be so arbitrary and therefore unimportant. And even if it were arbitrary what of it? This entire thread is about personal preference.

Look dude what I was saying was that your objections didn't add up and whatayaknow I was right. I said to call it personal preference, because the objections were arbitrary and unimportant. Let's pay attention.

Certainly didn't set out to be insulting but I'm OK with you feeling that way.

[Jackhass]

I sometimes envy she crispness of the lines people who ink digitally get...no matter how clean my inks are there always seems to be a slight loss of clarity when I scan 'em. Of course I'm probably the only person on the planet anal enough to notice, but still.

Ultimately though I just don't much enjoy drawing on the computer. I use a tablet for shading and stuff, but I find actually drawing with it is annoying and arduous.

[Guyford]

I sometimes envy she crispness of the lines people who ink digitally get...no matter how clean my inks are there always seems to be a slight loss of clarity when I scan 'em. Of course I'm probably the only person on the planet anal enough to notice, but still.

Ultimately though I just don't much enjoy drawing on the computer. I use a tablet for shading and stuff, but I find actually drawing with it is annoying and arduous.

I'm pretty much the same way. I use my tablet for clean up work and shading, but I prefer drawing with pencil/pen and paper. Even after doing my comic for almost 2 years, I still think it feels a little bit "off" when I use the tablet to draw. That and I like not having to turn my computer on when I feel like drawing

[Fishies]

I sometimes envy she crispness of the lines people who ink digitally get...no matter how clean my inks are there always seems to be a slight loss of clarity when I scan 'em. Of course I'm probably the only person on the planet anal enough to notice, but still.

Ultimately though I just don't much enjoy drawing on the computer. I use a tablet for shading and stuff, but I find actually drawing with it is annoying and arduous.

This. Digital lines (and colours) are so nice and crisp but I just don't enjoy doing it.

[Yeahduff]

Crispness is nice, but too often it translates into overkill and obviousness in unskilled hands. Digital color especially tends to look really garrish in webcomics.

[Warofwinds]

Crispness is nice, but too often it translates into overkill and obviousness in unskilled hands. Digital color especially tends to look really garrish in webcomics.

I think it only looks garish when the colorist doesn't know how to color in traditional media either, or at least, does not know color theory. Xylia, Cealdian, and White Noise are all colored digitally, and have some of the best use of colors I've ever seen.

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

I love digital colouring when it's done well. But lots of webcomics looks awful with digital colouring because people don't know how to chose them well, and the choices are essentially limitless when going digital. Hand colouring looks dreadful in the wrong hands too.

Damn, too slow. But I posted it anyway because I'm like that.

[RobertBr]

Crispness is nice, but too often it translates into overkill and obviousness in unskilled hands. Digital color especially tends to look really garrish in webcomics.

Could you give an example. I favour sketching by hand, and inking by hand most of the time (but not always), but I think it would be an experiment for me to colour not on the computer. I don't recall seeing a colour job by hand that looked good online.

Robert