[Aboogwa]

I have used a tablet before (a while ago) but it seemed very difficult to draw straight and clean edges with it. The pen always seemed a little unstable over the slippery tablet surface. So how do you easily and effectively draw clean, straight edges with a tablet?

[zak]

get a hard round brush, that should take care of the clean edges. fast confident strokes should take care of the straight part

[Anders L]

I have an untested tip. I haven't tried it because I havent got an wacom yet...

Put a pice of paper on the tablet and increace the preasure on the pen. Then it will feel more like painting on a paper... but as I said, I dunno of this works well or not...
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/Anders L aka aylien

[Aboogwa]

[Ian Jones]

Here are a few related solutions. for those of you who are wondering.. yes I usually copy+paste this from a word document.

Working Size:
Depending on the output of your final illustration, the size you should work at needs to be at least 150% larger than the intended final measurements. This means you will be able to shrink the image down when finished, effectively ironing out any minor mistakes and allowing you to work on smaller details because of your larger / zoomed in canvas. This is a common practice in traditional illustration where �finished art� is usually done at �half up� size.

Straight Lines:
To draw perfectly straight lines with any of the brush tools, simply make a mark at your starting point, then hold down shift and make the end mark of the line. Photoshop will draw a straight line between these points with whichever brush you have selected. To continue drawing more connecting straight lines just press shift again.

Accurate shapes:
To draw a shape with straight lines and sharp corners, like a triangle for example, just make a selection with the Polygonal Lasso tool, set to point by point mode. Then paint in the selection. Other shapes with curves can be done using the pen tool. Draw your shape with the pen tool. You can move the bezier handles around to create a smooth curve if you like. Goto the Paths pallete when you have your shape. Hold down ctrl, and left click on the path in the paths pallete. This will load a selection of that path shape, which you can use to paint within or you can add a stroke to use it for creating an outline.


There's probably something in there that'll help you. Using paper on the surface is a common solution, however it does wear down the pen nib a little faster (but you have plenty of spares).

More confident strokes, more practice will both help. Most important of all though is that noone can get totally smooth lines so don't kill yourself trying. Even Craig Mullins has rough edges. The key to avoiding the jitters is to work at a large resolution and size it down ready for printing or whatever at the end. As explained above this is a common technique.

Hope that helps.

[Aboogwa]

To make clarifications, I wasn't talking about how to draw "canned" shapes like pentagons and octagons. Drawing clean, non-jittery curves is also an issue.

Hmm.. I think that the suggestion to start at a large resolution applies the most to the situation I was talking about. I will have to try that. Unfortunately I don't have a tablet right now.

Ian, can you somehow make available the complete word file?

[Aboogwa]

Also, is:

using multiple layers for background and foreground details (like using a layer for the eyes and lips, another for the face, another for the body, etc etc)

Using multiple layers to facillitate easier correction of mistakes

considered "cheap" or "bad practice" because it's like relying on an artificial crutch?

This is not necessarily the opinion I hold, but I'm just wondering if this becomes an issue in the industry. Note, I am much more concerned about it being considered as bad practice and thus hindering skill development


Likewise is overreliance on the eraser when drawing with pencil also considered to be "cheap" and "bad practice"?

[convoyrider]

Brian Bolland does amazing artwork entirely with a wacom and PS. Here he provides two excellent tutorials on how to draw using a tablet. I never knew you could get such clean lines. They are very in-depth. Great Stuff for those who want to draw directly on the computer.


http://www.brianbolland.com/gk37/index.html

http://www.brianbolland.com/gk29/gk29-intro.html

[JesperGB]

Use undo when making lines. Make you stroke, look at it - if it is not smooth and nice, then press ctrl+z and do a new-one. repeat this 3-4 times for each stroke and your artwork will be more accurate and harmonic.
_________________
/Jesper GB

Visit my gallery at: Click here to see it

[Aboogwa]

When drawing from a reference, how important is the ability to draw while not looking at the paper for long periods of time?

Also how important is the ability to keep the reference in memory and draw without looking at the reference for a long period of time?

Also is it possible to realistically draw a reference completely from memory? For example, is it possible to accurately draw a human face completely from memory? Also going one step further, is it possible to paint a face accurately, retaining even all the lighting information?
(There was this movie where this autistic kid could do this)

[Aboogwa]

There seems to be stages to a 2B pencil's state between sharpenings.
When it is freshly sharpened it's very hard to do light shading, but easier to draw outlines. As it becomes blunter it seems to become easier to shade, but outlining becomes harder. How do you get around this?
Is there a way to quickly get the pencil to a state that is conducive to shading?
I'm thinking that a fresh sharpening would be a quick prepartion for outlining.

Or am I thinking about this the wrong way and the best way to shade is on the side of the pencil tip or something? If so, how can you do this accurately?

[Aboogwa]

While drawing with a 2b pencil, there seems to be a penalty associated with each erase. Each time the eraser is applied, it seems to progressively work toward creating an irreversible gray smudge. (Erasing eyeballs seems to be particularly costly.)

Are there certain types of paper that slow the rate of such a progression? For example is sketchbook paper superior to notebook paper in this respect?

[Ian Jones]

Can't reply to your questions atm, its 1:15 am here. just to clarify though, thats all I have written in my document, cos they are common questions. sorry, you'd hoped there'd be more?

bye

[Aboogwa]

[Ian Jones]

hehe, nah. Just the only stuff I have bothered to write so far. It is a common topic though

I'll let the others answer your other questions... (eg. I'm lazy)

[Aaron]

I'm by no means an expert on pencil drawing, but I've noticed a few things that might help.

ERASING - The eraser, lead type, and texture of the paper all make a difference in your ability to cleanly erase. The more texture your paper has, the harder it is to erase, so I avoid sketch book paper and use smoother typing paper for sketching and bristol board for important finished work. My favorite erasers are Pentel Click Erasers (around 1 dollar). They are soft and will never tear your paper. I try to keep my lines light until I have them where I want them.

SHADING - Have you considered mechanical pencils? I highly recommend them. I use 3mm for the line work and details, 7mm for the shading. I keep a few ready with different leads. No sharpening, they are always ready. Along with a couple pentel click erasers and a stack of paper you can work for hours without distraction.

REFERENCE - Look at Travis Charest's gallery at http://www.travischarestgallery.com/, in particular http://www.travischarestgallery.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=image&id=197 and http://www.travischarestgallery.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=image&id=99. He uses no reference for his characters. Aren't they exciting? I think using too much reference makes your art static. I'm not sure you can ever be totally free from reference, but for human anatomy, I think you can eventually learn it well enough to make a believable image. That's my goal!

An exercise that has really helped me (though I still suck) to become less dependant on reference is to get a stack of paper, a pen, and draw with a specific figure (like a knight, or a drunk Japanese man) in various poses and actions, over and over. No erasing, no empahsis on details, about 1 minute each, about 10 a page. And I do that for about an hour or more. Then I go back and do more finished sketchs of the good poses with pencil, still all from memory. After I have finished as much as I can from memory I get out the reference and correct it. I also do this for faces, hands etc. It seems to be helping.

[Aboogwa]

[Aboogwa]

How different is a 6x8 table from a 9x12 tablet. And supposedly the 12x12 tablet is just a bad idea... Is the 6x8 table really restricting or does it not make much difference at all? I can "imagine" how each physical stroke on a smaller tablet would be artificially magnified on the monitor. Is this really an issue? Also what are the other issues that arise?

[egerie]

The thing that irritated me the most is that I couldn't turn my tablet to make power strokes like I do with my sketchbook or animation disc.

Anyway. I work with a 6x8 and it works nicely for me. going back to the 4x5 that's at home after months of no use was a bit of a shock tho.

[balistic]

I use a piece of illustration board to increase the nib traction on my 12x12. It's soft enough that it doesn't eat the nib, and rigid enough that it doesn't get worn out as fast as paper does.



The lines on that are fully-digital.

edit: not that they're amazing. They just look pretty much like pencil.
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brian.prince|light.comp.paint