[Rinaldo]

Here's a couple of things I've been playing around with.

But first I have a question of sorts:
You see, all the work I've done so far in the digital realm has required the scanning of a sketch. I just can't seem to do the initial drawing with my wacom. I find that I just dont have the control that a pencil gives. I can't get those long steady lines that are possible with a pencil beacse the stylus is too sensitive to movement. If my hand wobbles in the slightest the mistake is multiplied ten fold on the screen. I was wondering if this was due to the fact that I am only in possesion of a 4x5 size at the moment. If I was to get a larger size (say 9x12) which I am going to do anyway. would I be able to get a better line seeing as the tablet is closer to the screen size.
As is, I am adopting a very quick stroke so as to eliminate any possible wobbles but although fairly acurate it has a lot to be desired in many situations.
This might have a bit to do with the fact that I still have'nt got away from drawing in line (all those bloody aspirations to be a comic artist). But I am nonetheless curious as to whether it is to do with the technology or the technique.

Anyway here's some eye candy:


This is someting hot of my hard drive. I was wanting to get more movement into it (someting lacking in my digi art up until now) and after Spooge's little talk about just letting it happen I decided to do the sorta thing I would have done in traditional media. Just attack the empty white space




This is just a quick "colouring in" of a sketch. the anatomy is shonky but I kinda like it anyway.



And just for fun, this is an old watercolour of a frog.

[Rinaldo]

Oh yeah and:

"Yes" the first pic is a bit Battle Chasers inspired

(just thought I'd get in first incase there was anyone out there after a "your not original" fight)

[nori]

very cool. I like the frog and the second chick.

I have the same problem when I try to sketch with my tablet. I can usually only do good sketchs with my tablet when I just don't care. But if I really try, making a curve just doesn't work. I think it's because I can't spin the tablet around while I draw like I can a piece of paper...

[Rinaldo]

Yeah that's another thing, you sorta have to change the way you draw because the tablet doesn't lend well to being turned around (does anyone dissagre?) this would be ok but you need a lot of control to be able to pull off any line from the one position and the tablet just doesn't cut it (agin, anyone dissagre?).
I find myself using stroke path an stuff like that but it slows things down.

[Anthony]

I like the first pic. Here's a way to do straight lines with the wacom: zoom out. The smaller the picture the less the wacom's sensativity will come into play. Or get a snake and position it how you want over the wacom(get a non-magnetic one .

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[Rinaldo]

That's interesting, I would have thought that zooming out would have amplified the errors. It would work if I was using a fast stroke but I want to go slowly and as soon as I do that the line gets all jittery.

I assume a "snake" is some form of bendable ruler?

Thanks for the suggestions:)

[Francis]

I can't sketch the same way with the tablet as I can with pencil and paper. The tablet is an incredible tool, but I don't think its strength is in fine motor control like traditional tools. Your hand eye coordination has less "steps" to go through with pencil and paper. Or maybe I'm just a spaz.

I forgot to add that I really like the frog watercolor the best. Watercolor is one of the hardest (in my experience) of the traditional mediums to control. You really captured the moist surface of the skin.
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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[This message has been edited by Francis (edited July 12, 2000).]

[waylon]

I've found that one thing that helps ME get steadier lines is to put a piece of paper on the tablet, and draw over that. One of the biggest differences between tablet work vs pencil/paper (in my opinion) is that there's so little friction. Putting a piece of paper on the tablet helps this. Of course, if you have cheap paper, you'll get wavy lines due to irregularities in the paper. But your hand should be steadier. And it's just much nicer to draw on.

[Frost]

Very nice work Rinaldo!

I also have a 4x5 here, and, it's tough to get nice curves happening because your slightest little movement is scaled up by a lot. I often have to redo a curve about 5 times and then touch it up with afterwards to round off the rough edges... doing curves fast just makes photoshop interpolate between tablet samples in a very linear fashion, giving broken cruves... oh well.

I work with a bigger tablet at work however, and although it's bigger and you have more control, it's still not the same as paper... at least for me, I can easily rotate a piece of paper to accomodate the angle of a curve by a nice wrist movement,.. rotating a large tablet is very bothersome, and you're never sure how the orientation is going to be like.. (at least, I have problems hacking that!).

cheers - keep up the great work!
frost.

[hennifer]

frost - that's brilliant! i've had the same problem, and your solution is so simple that i never would've thought of it. thanks.

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hennifer

[Rinaldo]

Hey, there are some great ideas here.

Francis- I've noticed that you tend to use a very basic black line drawing as a sketch. This is probably all that is needed, but do you still find it limmiting?


waylon- I tried the paper thing with favorable results. However, for me it rases a few problems of its own. For instance the paper requires that there be more pressure applied with the stylus than normal, and this tended to cause too much friction as I was really pushing hard to get the highest pressure. Is there a way to cange pressure sensitivity. I know there is a way in painter but I use PS (damn stupid painter interface).

By the by; I was talking to a Metacreations guy who came to my collage. and he was someone who had been working in industry for ages and had given it up to be a spokesperson and advisor for meta. And he was going on about how Adobe have patented a lot of their interface, thus making it impossible to impliment it in painter. I think he said that the P6 interface had to be licensed from the people who make Autocad or something but he still thought it was crap.

F*&#ing Adobe

Frost- I never realised that you got broken curves if you make a fast curve. But now that you mention it I see what you mean. Wacom should be able to do better than that.


I would still like to know what sort of approach to take? Is it simply a matter of throwing away some of the methods, that are used with analoge (is that a good word to use) art? Does one need the control that a pencil gives?
Because I seem to be able to get by with the current situation but it bothers me. There are a large number of artists out there who don't use a scaned sketch. What sort of mind set do you take to the empty space, and how does this compare to when, if at all, you used/use traditional media.

I have a feeling that I should abandon my way of thinking about things, and drop all the bagage I have aquired through learning the methodical techniques of watercolour and such.

I have also noticed that Painter (I have ver 5) Gives you much cleaner lines that PS. It is much more like using a pencil. I feel I have more control. Does anyone have any stories to tell about their transition from PS to Painter? Is there some magic trick?

Anyone and everyone please feel free to step in and comment.

[henrik]

Let's say you do scan a pencil sketch with long soft lines. How would you then trace this line in Ps? It's still not easier to draw the line, but you have a reference.
Imho I would try another approach. Ps is such a great tool that lets you paint a stroke, and paint over it again and again a million times. Keep this in mind. Don't think in lines, use a more "painterly" method. Lay out your colors, if you'ree not satisfied, use more color. Don't think about the content of your pictures as a lot of lines, think of them as 3D objects and try to understand what it is your're actually painting. If you focus too much on a single line which you've been struggling with for ten minutes to get perfect, you're missing the whole picture. Let's say you want to do Rinaldos upper image, and that you're focusing on her left eye that's still not "perfect". (which is great now) Later on, let's say you go away for an hour and come back, you'll see that perhaps it's not the eye that's the problem, but it's the the whole head that's out of proportion to the rest of the body. This is what I think of when painting/drawing. Hope someone agrees.
Phew...that's the longest post I've ever written...

[henrik]

Let's say you do scan a pencil sketch with long soft lines. How would you then trace this line in Ps? It's still not easier to draw the line, but you have a reference.
Imho I would try another approach. Ps is such a great tool that lets you paint a stroke, and paint over it again and again a million times. Keep this in mind. Don't think in lines, use a more "painterly" method. Lay out your colors, if you'ree not satisfied, use more color. Don't think about the content of your pictures as a lot of lines, think of them as 3D objects and try to understand what it is your're actually painting. If you focus too much on a single line which you've been struggling with for ten minutes to get perfect, you're missing the whole picture. Let's say you want to do Rinaldos upper image, and that you're focusing on her left eye that's still not "perfect". (which is great now) Later on, let's say you go away for an hour and come back, you'll see that perhaps it's not the eye that's the problem, but it's the the whole head that's out of proportion to the rest of the body. This is what I think of when painting/drawing. Hope someone agrees.
Phew...that's the longest post I've ever written...
http://go.to/penk

[henrik]

Sorry about the double. er....triple
http://go.to/penk

[Rinaldo]

henrik- I hear what your saying about abandoning the line drawing mentality. But I still need to draw long thin curved shapes, that aren't wobbly.
take for instance the shoulder guard thing on the first pic it's going to need a highlight around the bottom. I't hard to get a nice regular highlight. I have to sort of use a series of small quick strokes.

I think your right about the sketch not realy helping in any logical way. But I have tried and I just don't seem to be able to push out anything good unless I start with a sketch. I mean after I get up and running the sketch isn't there. I mean it's gone before I start on any detail. It's not necessarily a pure line drawing that I use. it has shading and depth,
Ayway It seems like it's just my little fixation with the sketch thing and I'll have to simply work through it.
But If anyone has any imput (especialy people like spooge who seems to have really worked the whole thing out) please don't hesitate.


By the way henrik I just had a quick look at your site- some fantastic stuff there. gonna bookmark and have a closer look

[This message has been edited by Rinaldo (edited July 13, 2000).]

[Fred Flick Stone]

Rinaldo, please do not abandon all techniques of the er um, "analog" type...Just like the airbrush, or the CHinese Ink Brush, or oils, or acrylics, or watercolor, etc. every medium has its method of madness. Right now you suffer from, which way do I go, because the computer seems so unlimited. I would surrender to the program, learn all about it, and use it to evry potential degree possible. Working with a wacom is like working on ice. You don't have surface tension to resist the hand, so you dont know when and where to start or stop. Not to mention, that the surface of paper or canvas causes slight tension, which controls the hand and the line you make. The lines you make on the wacom kinda tell you how jittery (too much coffee that day) or in control of your hand you are really in. I find that because of the limitations of the wacoms slippery when wet feel, that doing the old masters way of painting is probably the best way to go. Get a really rough sketch started to block in the masses, the literally do it, block in the masses. Start large and then get to the details last. Don't draw line art in the computer, pen and ink do it better. Your stuff is already very painterly, so paint. Using a comic book method with the computer is counter intuitive, unless most of the comic art is done outside the computer. If this is how you first learned to draw, or what first got you inspired, then take a painting course somewhere just to see this other approach being done, so it clicks with you, that this is the way photoshop may best work for me.
The watercol;or method of painting is a build up approach, you can also do this in photoshop with the opacity set at anything besides 100%. I use this alot when I want to simulate a marker look over line art, and even when just freehand painting in photoshop. I am a traditional painter at heart, but I also know the importance of the computer and its firm foothold on the future of art, and I have to also conform to the digital ways. I actually enjoy it. It's like learning to draw all over again.
But getting details is the last part of an image you should concern yourself with. Ath that point, get on a new layer so you don't destroy all that you have built up, use the line tool, pen tool, masks, filters, whatever it takes to get those neat little bits of detail in the drawing, then merge the layers together, and blend a few edges together to give it a more adhered look. Remember, no one needs to know how you got to the final image, they only see the end result. If you feel like you cheated to get a straight line, just don't tell your audience, they don't care anyway. Only other artists get all caught up in how you produced your work, and how true to tradition you stuvk with. I say, fuck those thoughts, and just do more great images. And enjoy the learning curve along the way.
And don't stop the traditional art that you do. That frog is beautiful, and I would hate to see skills like that thrown away because the computer told you to...

[DeathbyDuplicity]

That's a sweet first pick man! The drapery on the second is pretty tight, and uh....I'd eat that frog. Other than that most of the stiff about the tablet was already said. Thanks a lot FFS! heheheh! Pencils aren't like dips, dips aren't like brushes, brushes aren't like wacoms. Easy to live with it once you accepted it.

[sfr]

Yeah, sketching on Wacom is pretty weird. I do it myself for everything though, simply because I don't have a scanner. Fred's advice is the one to follow really - if you can get used to starting a painting with rough masses and no lines at all, then do it!

Myself, I seem to have a need to draw at least some lines to start an image before I go splotching color around. So I do it in Painter with the pencil; the result usually looks very ugly, nothing like a real pencil sketch would, but at least it's got some shapes that I can then paint over. Nothing wrong with this method I guess...

Your frog is very sweet btw!

Saffron / Sunflower

[This message has been edited by sfr (edited July 13, 2000).]

[spooge demon]

I agree with Fred. One of the complications of traditional media is build up. Paint/charcoal/whatever feels different as the layers get thicker. Having a nice line drawing that has your shapes worked out makes sense here. I liked gouache, which if you handle it properly, gets richer the thicker you go. I can see that you are accomplished with the watercolor, so you must be quite used to working out things beforehand.

One of the great strengths of digital is no media build up. Put out a shape, cut it back, refine it, endlessly. Use that advantage because there are so many disadvantages.

When I started digital, there were no wacoms that I could afford (and we liked it!), so I adapted the gouache technique to take advantage of what I could and minimize what I was giving up. I did not use a wacom for a long time because of what Fred mentioned. It seemed to be a half baked transitional tool to make going digital a little more comfortable. I can see liking a tablet if you express well with line.

I think using the mouse made me a better painter. I had to concentrate on major masses and getting the big picture right as opposed to rendering with a thousand tiny strokes. This is called "licking" and can be seen from 4 miles away.

Is there anyone out there who can do a semi passable drawing with a wacom? I can't, but then my linework on paper is pretty ugly. I run to the paper sometimes to work out something tricky, but that's about it. I learned to draw with shape, as probably a painter should. Another case of the media leaving it's mark on the artist.

[waylon]

As far as changing pressure sensitivity on your stylus, there aren't any setting inside of photoshop. However, if you have a similar system to mine (Win 95/98, wacom tablet with recent drivers), you can change the settings globally.

start->settings->control panel->Wacom Tablet

You might have to go through some "introduction" menus, but once you're into the settings, there'll be a tab labeled "tip feel". You can play around with the settings in there until you find something you like.

[n8]

this might only be on the 6x8 or larger...but aint there a tool bar at the top of ur wacom to change the sensitivity??...and i recon wacom should make a digital arists mouse...like a special mouse just for drawing/painting....coz the got special gamers mice...y not for computer art??..hehe...and another idea for wacom...they should put their tablets on lil turntables or something to simulate the truning of paper to accomadate the angle/curves the hand draws...but then im drifting off the subject...sooooo....nice pics...i thought the first one looked abit battlechasersrish...o yeah...for those soft line pencil scanner people...you could try using paths...they work wonders for me...but then you still get the odd jags in it

[mantis]

I like gully and the frog the best. Although the gully pic would look really good if you finished it.

[TeAnne]

I don't have a drawing tablet thingy but I am in awe at what I saw here. God! I love that first one, "whew" I doubt I could even oil paint something like that. Fantastic.

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[Rinaldo]

Thanks people. You have no idea how helpfull these comments have been.

I have had a real struggle getting away from the line drawing thing. I've invested a lot of time into doing things in line, only to find that it sorta put me in a corner. I still love line drawings, but I think it's important to be able to think about objects in terms of colour and value and the computer has made that a lot easier.
I've had to put up with a lot of rubbish concerning these sort of subjects. My Illustration teacher would copy/trace everything. He works in Industry and makes a lot of money from doing what he does, but he literaly copies everything. And he was't about to acept any other ideas on the subject. He also hated computers. I mean the guy wouldn't touch one with a ten foot pole. I remember him telling us all the trouble he went through to do this one job. It was a two colour line drawing of a paint bucket. He did stuff like draw the paint can lable and wrap it around a can and then put it under a bromide camera (yes he has his own) on an angle he then took the exposure and pasted it on his can drawing so it would be at the right angle. He then messed around with transparancies to get some red paint around the rim of the can. He then paid some other guy to scan it and put the two things together. And he would preach this sort of thing.
We also had to do "Paste up". If you know what that is then you can understand my bitterness, and if you don't, then you are better off for it
(it involves a lot of tech pens and rulers)

Paste up and finished art are actuialy very good for drawing skills. but it sucks when you fail a whole course if you have a line one mm out.

Anyway enough complaining

Fred- That's some great stuff you said. I think that the key to digi art is that you have to stop trying to mimic and replicate traditional art. It's just that It's a very unforgiving medium, it cuts everything away, until there is much less technique required. It all comes down to colour, value, shape, etc. I'd been able to get away with bullshit before, using little tricks and smudging things, but the computer sort of put me in my place. I had to get the right colour, instead of mixing it on the paper and geting it all dirty and ambiguious.
But at the same time I can have any colour I want. It is a little overwhelming.


I don't ever plan to stop doing watercolour, and I'm glad everone likes the frog so much. I just love the unpredictability of it

spooge demon- If you get around to reading this I have to say that your work has been one of the biggest inspirations. When I first came across your site I was up until like 6 in the morning. I didn't stop until I had seen everything.
It sorta got me thinking about just how full of shit my Illustration teacher was. I had seriously given up on digi art becasue I just did't think that you could get good colour on the computer. there are so many little swatches and it's imposible to see what colour they are. but after seeing your stuff I got all pumped up and just kept at it. I'm sort of getting the hang of it now (with the emphasis on sort of).
I was totaly intrigued by your stuff. Because my stuff was always a bit impresonistic, and thus a bit messy. However, after looking at you stuff I realised that I can just zoom up and be very loose and impresonist, and then zoom out and have it look pretty tight.

I find your comments on the mouse to be rather interesting. Although I don't think I could bring myself to use a mouse. It makes a lot of sense to force yourself to really think about the major masses and shapes. I usuialy just do it as opposed to thinking about it.

I think that I've found what I was after so thanks everyone. I still think It's an interesting topic tho, so any one is welcome to make more comments.

Feeling a lot more comfortable now. after hearing what everyone has to say.

I might post some more watercolour stuff. I don't really have all that many pieces though. All my time last year was taken over with Paste up and other rubbish

I am currently trying to put together a portfolio so I can get a job and get out of my archaic Advertising + graphic design course.

Thanks again