[Hands]

whats a good large image size to start out with (length and width) that doesn't mess up the pen when i start drawing?

[Ian Jones]

It depends on the use of your final image. If being used for on screen display then it will be at 72dpi, if for print then it should be 300dpi. Keeping that in mind you need to paint at about 1.5 to 2 times the size of the final image, so that you can shrink it down and it will look good!

As for you problem with the pen, get more skillful with it. Do some excercises before starting your drawing. The jaggy lines you are experiencing could also be due to what you are actually drawing, if you are unsure how to draw something you often just scratch around and produce nervous lines.

Also try lifting your wrist off the surface, draw from the elbow and swing your arm so that movements originate from there, and not from your wrist if it is stuck lazily on the table. This should help you produce smoother lines.

Hope that helps.

[HawkOne]

Everything Ian Jones said, and it also depends on your hardware. I assume that is what you are talking about when you mention messing up the pen.

Since there are a zillion different configurations of PC out there, it is not easy to say what will work on any one of them until you try it for yourself. Generally plenty of available RAM, a good graphics card, and a relatively new CPU should be happy with anything up to say 2-3000 pixels wide and 1000-2000 pixels high in 300 dpi on a normal consumer PC.

If you want to go above that, the machine will start to demand lots of cash in additional hardware on its way to becoming a proper graphics workstation.