# Drawing and shading by hand



## Runeaddyste (Dec 3, 2008)

I notice a lot of artists are using software rather than traditional pen and paper. I use pen and paper for two reasons:
1: i can't afford a "pad"
2: I can't draw using a mouse.

I find it one of the more reliable meathods of drawing (even if my art style is a bit sloppy). Does anyone else prefer pen to paper, or has everyone run away with technology?


----------



## RailRide (Dec 3, 2008)

Most people draw on paper, ink it, then scan into their computer before digitally coloring. 

Doing it entirely digitally involves a significant learning curve, since graphics tablets large enough to draw on in a natural manner are costly (the price increases way out of proportion to the relative size of the tablet as it gets larger). It's not as common a practice as it seems, despite frequent talk of tablets. It's just a more intuitive-feeling way of working once you've gotten the pic scanned in.

Some artists will scan pencils and digitally color that using a form of digital voodoo called layers (for a sketchy look), others ink the pencils digitally then strip out the pencil drawing before adding color. This particular method is easier to achieve with a mouse--if you do your inking in the form of short segmented straight lines (as opposed to trying to trace curves directly), your pointer will stay put as you start each segment.

---PCJ


----------



## mrredfox (Dec 3, 2008)

i draw pencil then trace on flash, mainly cause it looks like im half decent :3


----------



## Yaxerins (Dec 3, 2008)

I could go either way. The tablet is fun for me, but most of the time I sketch things out on paper first and then "ink" it in photoshop.

I'm learning how to do digital work, but likewise I'm not neglecting graphite, charcoal, ink, and all those other fun traditional goodies


----------



## Kiriska (Dec 3, 2008)

Drawing by hand is much, much easier for me, but lacking a scanner half the year when I'm not on campus, it's much more convenient for me to draw digitally.


----------



## Shark_the_raptor (Dec 3, 2008)

Runeaddyste said:


> I notice a lot of artists are using software rather than traditional pen and paper. I use pen and paper for two reasons:
> 1: i can't afford a "pad"
> 2: I can't draw using a mouse.
> 
> I find it one of the more reliable meathods of drawing (even if my art style is a bit sloppy). Does anyone else prefer pen to paper, or has everyone run away with technology?



I do traditional media, mainly colored pencils.  Recently, though, I have been experimenting with digital.  I like both.  But I suppose I still prefer traditional because of the control.


----------



## EroRisuSama (Dec 4, 2008)

I dont have tablet, so i just draw and scann ^^ Tho, if somone ask me some digital work, i can color with mouse, or touchpad.
I also "draw" sometimes in paint with mouse, and curve/circle tools, mainly for SD/chibi.


----------



## Anbessa (Dec 4, 2008)

I draw traditionally entirely. I don't have a tablet, can't afford one, and couldn't draw with a mouse if everybody's life depended on it.


----------



## Horrorshow (Dec 4, 2008)

Both are awesome, but I'd prolly be doing a lot more traditional stuff if I didn't have such a shitty scanner.


----------



## Zseliq (Dec 4, 2008)

So THATs what the other people do. I just draw free hand with my mouse but wowee drawing on paper first sure sounds easier! lol


----------



## Azerane (Dec 5, 2008)

I do both, though I'm a huge fan of traditional media. I do 99% of my sketches in sketch books, only sometimes on the comp. If I'm doing a picture digitally, I'll ink on the comp as well. I've never inked by hand and then comp coloured a pic.

I prefer to use colour pencils, because it's fun and because I love the way a picture takes shape with them. Digital art I find I do because it can be more convenient and is generally quicker for me (unless I'm doing a background, but I don't like doing digital backgrounds anyway).

With traditional art, I always spend a lot more time on the colouring though, because you have to be more accurate, there's no 'Ctrl+z', so I spend a lot of time on it and take a lot of care with it. It's just really special in that way I guess.


----------



## Toxxy (Dec 7, 2008)

I sraw using the traditional method. Shame is I don't have a working scanner but I did get a tablet only to find out I can't draw for shit on it. So I'm basically screwed coming and going.


----------



## spartanpanda (Dec 8, 2008)

I have a tablet, but i find it unnatural to draw while looking up at my computer screen so it makes it really hard to draw...
I normal scan then i vector the hell out of the scan in photoshop


----------



## ChapperIce (Dec 13, 2008)

Mm whenever I ink traditionally and try to color the lines in photoshop, the lines look all fuzzy and faded...How can I fix that? ;___; 

So I usually ink with my tablet..


----------



## RailRide (Dec 13, 2008)

I've been using tablets as a primary input device (as in, in place of a mouse) since Windows 3.1 days. Having said that, I've only done two pieces (out of more than 300 pics I have in my FA gallery) that didn't originate as hand-drawn artwork. And the first of them was built over a scan of a three-inch stick figure. 

Deneba Canvas vector pic
Open Canvas pic

Everything else started as hand-drawn work. A very few pics were digitally inked (example) in order to save time, or to create extra fine lineweight (something I haven't completely succeeded at). 

When I did digital inking, I created a layer above the pencils and then traced with the mouse using the straight-line tool. By using very short line segments, I was able to trace curves well enough that they...well, looked like curves. At the color stage, I reverted back to the tablet because I'm just used to it. But by that point, suckitude at "just drawing with the tablet" isn't that big an problem.  Mostly its used for minor linework edits and color effects.

The few times I did colored lineart I did the "magic wand" select on the lineart and painted directly on them. Of course, you can't have fuzzy (antialiased) lines when you do this. The linked example appears this way because it's 25% the size of the original, which had completely B/W lineart before it was colored.

---PCJ


----------



## tacticalsnake (Dec 19, 2008)

I use both. 
Although it depends on what I want to do with the image. If it's something simple and not really worth the paper and ink it would take to do, I do it entirely on the computer with a tablet. If it's something I actually care about, then I pull out the pencils, the ink bottles and the pen nibs (I've started using dipping pens for inking instead of using microns. Got tired of micron ink being so dull). 
Like someone else mentioned, it's much harder to draw using a tablet than it is to just do it "by hand".


----------



## Arshes Nei (Dec 19, 2008)

I can't take a tablet with me all the time to draw. It's kinda stupid to be starting up a laptop when you're doing gesture drawings and sketches of people outside.


----------



## Anbessa (Dec 19, 2008)

ChapperIce said:


> Mm whenever I ink traditionally and try to color the lines in photoshop, the lines look all fuzzy and faded...How can I fix that? ;___;
> 
> So I usually ink with my tablet..



problem is, the ink seeps into the paper. you can't see it, but the scanner pcik it up in ever-so-slightly shades of grey, and then your colouring tool picks up a border to the stark white of the paper's white.
your only chance is, scan in a good pencil sketch, and use RailRide's method with layers.


----------



## Arshes Nei (Dec 19, 2008)

I should also mention for those inking digitally Open Canvas does have on the fly canvas rotation. Use the Alt Key to rotate it and use the Alt Key again to put it back to the original orientation. I have a setting in the OC thread in the Tutorials section on how to create an inking pen in Open Canvas.

One of the reasons it was harder to ink digitally was getting curves right and traditionally you would rotate your paper to make the curve look right.

In Painter you can also use on the fly canvas rotation and Photoshop CS4 *finally* has it.

But since Open Canvas is free it's a good beginner tool to learn how to do inking digitally.


----------



## RailRide (Dec 19, 2008)

Anbessa said:


> problem is, the ink seeps into the paper. you can't see it, but the scanner pcik it up in ever-so-slightly shades of grey, and then your colouring tool picks up a border to the stark white of the paper's white.
> your only chance is, scan in a good pencil sketch, and use RailRide's method with layers.



While the method I described will work, it's not the "only" method around the fuzzy-line problem. I scan my lineart at 300dpi B/W mode, so there are _no_ shades of grey to mess up bucket fills or selections. At this point, any pronounced fuzzines in your inks will likely manifest itself as jagged edges or gaps in the lines at certain spots, which I smooth out or fill in as necessary. _Then_ I convert it to a color image and start coloring. 

For my penciling, I use Staples' "Bright White printing paper" as it's extra-smooth. Also, if you use a soft-plastic eraser like a Pentel Clic-Erase on your pencils, it won't roughen the paper enough to cause ink to "fuzz out". The first time I used this combination, the inks (I often ink with a brush) didn't need _any_ editing and were ready to convert & color almost immediatley.

---PCJ


----------



## hillbilly guy (Dec 19, 2008)

pencil of charcoal for me i cant draw with a computer to save my neck, i just have more control with a pencil


----------

