Art
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Bango Skank
- Regular Poster
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2007 9:12 am
- Location: Wherever the whim takes me
Art
What's the process you use to get your stuff from pencil & paper to the finished product? You've seen what my "stuff" looks like, but I don't really like where I'm at right now. I've been drawing it, then going over the lines again with a pen, then scanning it into Adobe Photoshop and using Illustrator to trace out the lines and fill in the colors. It works, but it all looks too...flat. Shading is something I need to work on, but I'm not sure how to do that with what I have. =P Kinda new at this.
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Mrdaveryan
- Regular Poster
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- Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2006 9:37 pm
- Location: Conshohocken
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My process has changed a number of times, especially lately. Here's the breakdown of my current technique for making pages:
I start with a very rough pencil and paper sketch, mainly to determine the panel layout. I don't have a scanner so I take a photo with my digital camera. I don't trace over anything in pen so as you can imagine it shows up very light on my computer which is fine, because this is just a guide. I open the photo in Photoshop and crop it so it fits the dimensions of my comics. I use a Wacom stylus pad for all the line work. The key here, for me, is that I set the pen to fluctuate opacity and width depending on how much pressure I apply. I also use this in coloring.
Now as for the shading, there's a bunch of ways to do this and they all result in different looks.
With my current set-up, for most colors, I can simply apply more pressure to the pen in areas where I think it should be darker. To get a more pronounced difference I'll grab a real dark blue (or whatever, depending on the scene) and set the opacity to something like 15%. Create a new layer on top of all the other stuff and color all the areas that should be shaded. You can use this method to get a cel-shaded look or be lazy and sloppy with it like me to get an almost water-colorish feel.
Another method which is beautifully low-tech and just a darn good practice is crosshatching at the sketching phase.
Crosshatching rules.
Get in a habit of not considering an image done until it appears 3d to you - even stupid little doodles.
Sorry is this is a bit rambled, trying to make it quick.
I start with a very rough pencil and paper sketch, mainly to determine the panel layout. I don't have a scanner so I take a photo with my digital camera. I don't trace over anything in pen so as you can imagine it shows up very light on my computer which is fine, because this is just a guide. I open the photo in Photoshop and crop it so it fits the dimensions of my comics. I use a Wacom stylus pad for all the line work. The key here, for me, is that I set the pen to fluctuate opacity and width depending on how much pressure I apply. I also use this in coloring.
Now as for the shading, there's a bunch of ways to do this and they all result in different looks.
With my current set-up, for most colors, I can simply apply more pressure to the pen in areas where I think it should be darker. To get a more pronounced difference I'll grab a real dark blue (or whatever, depending on the scene) and set the opacity to something like 15%. Create a new layer on top of all the other stuff and color all the areas that should be shaded. You can use this method to get a cel-shaded look or be lazy and sloppy with it like me to get an almost water-colorish feel.
Another method which is beautifully low-tech and just a darn good practice is crosshatching at the sketching phase.
Crosshatching rules.
Get in a habit of not considering an image done until it appears 3d to you - even stupid little doodles.
Sorry is this is a bit rambled, trying to make it quick.
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Bango Skank
- Regular Poster
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2007 9:12 am
- Location: Wherever the whim takes me
Nah, it's cool. Good stuff. I've thought about getting a tablet before; I actually think one of the guys my father works with (he works at a newspaper) was offering an old tablet of his to us for free. I'll have to check up and find out if the offer is still on the table.
I'll work on the cross-hatching in the mean time. One thing I've found is that most of my favorite drawings are the rough doodles I do in like 30 seconds. They look really sketchy, but I often prefer them to the "finished" product, or stuff that I take forever on trying to get it just right.
Must...be...less...OCD..
I'll work on the cross-hatching in the mean time. One thing I've found is that most of my favorite drawings are the rough doodles I do in like 30 seconds. They look really sketchy, but I often prefer them to the "finished" product, or stuff that I take forever on trying to get it just right.
Must...be...less...OCD..