[geoman2k]

I go to a lot of digital art sites, and I see these cartoony pieces of art that are just great. The main thing is how these people can get such perfect straight, curving, circlular and organic lines that just look so clean and perfect- with stylish things like varying thickness in lines and such. I'm just woundering how you do this type of stuff? I'm still getting used to my Wacom, and I can't draw clean lines for shit. Also, when I try to use pressure sensetivity to make teh lines vary in thickness, they allways get thick and thin in the wrong places. When I try drawin with a pencil and pen, I get much better pen control, but when i scan it in, it gets all messy looking and junk.
i primarily use Photoshop for digital art. Should I be using a different program like Illistrator? Or do I just have to practice a lot more on pen control?
I'm basically just asking (and this is mainly aimed twards agent44): how do you go about drawin your cartoons? Any secrets? What programs or media do you use?
You guys can check out my current work on my web page... most of the cartoon junk is in the "doodles" section.

Thanks for listening

[ June 12, 2001: Message edited by: geoman2k ]

[Gandalf]

I'm not sure what the proper way to do this is, but since I despise my drawing abilities, I do a rough sketch, then use the pen tool in PS to create various stroked paths make everything nice and perfect.

I dunno. Works for me .

[Rob McLay]

Without seeing specific examples, I would guess that the style you are referring to is done in Illustrator, or some other vector based illustration program. This *usually* means you put away the Wacom in exchange for the control of the curves and splines using the evil pen tool.
I personally lay down a hand drawn scan on the bottom layer and 'draw' on top. Pretty simple but it can take a lot of time.
With newer versions of Illustrator you can export to PS with layers intact, thus allowing you to paint within the cleanly generated lines, if you want a more painted look and feel.

[NukleoN]

I'm no Agent 44, but I do have very clean lines when I work in Painter with mah Wacom. The way I do it is to sketch with the scratchboard tool, to get the figure or whatever drawn, then clean up manually, sampling the background to get the erasing color (usually white).

Since I am a line perfectionist, I make a good effort to get these ultra-clean. That's pretty much the only way I can think of to do this with any amount of control...you can try to adjust levels and contrast beforehand if your source drawing is really sketchy, this will save you some work.

Good luck,

Oh yeah see my site if you want to see my lines..

http://www.nukleon.com

[egerie]

hello there. Neither am I Agent44 but here are my 2c.
Personally I like cleaning up my drawings by hand than relying on any software or tablet. The tablet is great for everything coloring but doing line art is a hassle with a wacom.
I'm sure there are people doing just that on the forum but I prefer saving 4278561 hours by whipping out my good old pencils
I use either Staedtler 2B for standard animation or medium nib pencil for thick/thin animation. A "brush pencil" is also a good instrument if you want to do a single drawing with a thick and thin effect to it.
A good exercise is practice, watch other artists' pieces closely -even retracing them, making a perfect retrace, but don't put it anywhere near your protfolio or anything !!! With time you'll learn the right 'feel' of a line.

Oh and for the scanned images, as NukleoN mentionned you NEED to adjust your levels or brightness/contrast before any colouring.

Toodles !
-ege

[agent44]

I hardley ever come to this part of the forum, lucky I saw this thread.
egerie, said it right. I can't for the life of me get good line quality with my wacom, so I just stick with pencils. Sometimes I'll ink, but that's rare.
below is what I use:

Blue pencil to sketch then any one of the graphite pencils to get a nice clean line.
The key then is in scanning proccess. Make sure you scan it in at 300dpi. working at a higher resolution usually makes things a bit crisper and less "pixely." When you done reduce the image to 72dpi, and it should iron it out.
I hope that helps.

[Jin]

quote:

---

Originally posted by geoman2k:
I do to a lot of digital art sites, and I see these cartoony pieces of art that art just great. The main thing is how these people can get such perfect straight, curving, circlular and organic lines that just look so clean and perfect- with stylish things like varying thickness in lines and such.

<SNIP>

i primarily use Photoshop for digital art. Should I be using a different program like Illistrator? Or do I just have to practice a lot more on pen control?

<SNIP>

Thanks for listening

---

Hi,

Among others, Painter is a great program to use and it's used by a cartoonists as well as other professionals doing various kinds of art.

Take a look at Mike Reed's Flame Warriors collection. If nothing else, they're entertaining.. a series of cartoons representing various flamers found on e-mail lists and message boards throughout cyberspace. I believe all of Mike's cartoons are done in Painter.
http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame1.html

Another is Don Seegmiller who has a very different style.

Don's sketches ("doodles"): http://www.seegmiller-art.com/doodles.htm

A few of his finished pieces:
http://www.seegmiller-art.com/digitalgallery101.htm http://www.seegmiller-art.com/digitalgallery103.htm http://www.seegmiller-art.com/digitalgallery106.htm http://www.seegmiller-art.com/digitalgallery205.htm


For some additional techniques, take a look at Karen Sperling's Artistry Online CDs at:
http://www.artistrymag.com

I think the CD that pertains to what you want to do is the one named "Artistry Line Art Tutorials CD" that you can read about here:
http://www.artistrymag.com/docs/linetut.html

I believe there's a free tutorial on that page as well, or a link to one. The CDs are reasonably priced, contain beautifully illustrated tutorials written by Karen that take you through techniques used by professional artists.

One way to beef up the line work in Painter is to use Select menu, Auto Select, Using: Image Luminance to select the lines. Then Effects menu, Tonal Control, Brightness/Contrast and move the Contrast slider all the way to the right (high) and the Brightness slider all the way to the left (dark).

Then, if there are any parts of the line work that still need touching up, use the Pens brush's Scratchboard tool as NukleoN said, or the Pens brush's Smooth Ink Pen (or any tool that suits you).

Once the line work is ready, use Select menu, All to select the entire image then click inside the selection with the Layer Adjuster tool to lift the image to a Layer. Since painting is going to be done on the Canvas and the Layer is opaque, with the Layer highlighted, in the Controls:Adjuster palette, choose Composite Method Gel. This makes the white areas of the Layer transparent so you can see through the Layer and use the line work as a guide while you paint.. without disturbing the line work. Once the image is completed, you can save it in Painter RIFF format to keep the Painter specific information like Layers, the drop the Layer to the Canvas and save it in JPEG for the Web and/or TIFF for printing.

Hope you enjoy visiting the sites listed above and this has been helpful.

[smalls]

AGENT44!!!!!! hey is that a neat blue pencil you have on the top of your pic? where did you get that? like what store??? eh? it would probably depend cause i live in california, southern california... and you live in mesa.. wow.. my cousin lives in pheonix... i know that is completely different.. but still arizona.. keke.. sorry.. any way...
smalls

[A.Buttle]

I always think it's funny when new member show up and use existing members as examples. Seeg is a perfect example.

Where is he? Busy, I suppose.

[agent44]

smalls- I got it from the animation company I used to work at. I snagged a few supplies before the big lay-off.
But, I'm sure any art store would have them or know where to get them.

[Big Jay]

Smalls: Col-Erase pencils can be found in most stationary supply stores.

It's usually easier to find the red which accuntants use. Or mixed packs of colors

I acctually like the red better. I usually remove my red lines by grabbing the red channel in photoshop (I remove the blue lines by grabbing the blue channel)

If all else fails just use staples.com
here is a link; [url=http://www.staples.com/Catalog/Browse/skuset.asp?PageType=2&SkuSetID=116038&bcFlag=True&bcSCatId=1&bcSCatName=Office+Supplies&bcCatId=11&bcCatName=Pens%2C+Correction+%26+Art+S upplies&bcDeptId=1102&bcDeptName=Pencils&bcClassId=110202&bcClassName=Colored+Pencils] Faber Castell Col-erase pencils[/url]

Jay

[A.Buttle]

Fuck it. I quit.

[ June 17, 2001: Message edited by: A.Buttle ]

[ June 17, 2001: Message edited by: A.Buttle ]

[Felaxx]

try getting the book "the art of comic book inking" by gary martin. He has lengthy descriptions on the techniques of comic book inking, or all kinds of comic book inking, and I've learned a lot from it. It's not terribly expensive so I suggest you check it out =)