free me from my light table!!

gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Fri Jun 27, 2003 9:12 pm

How do you handle inking on top of pencils? I've been penciling on one page and then using a light table to ink onto another page. I like this method because the inked page has absolutely no pencil to erase or worry about. However, I don't like it because staring at a light table gives me a head ache, and also sometimes the pencil lines aren't that easy to see, and it can be difficult to get good detail.

The main problem with doing the pencils and inks on the same page for me is that I have a lot of sketchy lines building up into the final lines, which are darker. After inking on top of that, there are tons of sketchy lines that just won't erase all the way, even though they are very light. So when I scan the artwork in, there is always a lot of stray lines I don't want. I have tried messing around with the scanner software to reduce that, but nothing seems to work. I've been thinking of doing a sketchy page on thin paper and then maybe using a light table to go ahead and put light pencil lines on the final page, and then ink over them with the hope that since they aren't a build up of lots of sketchy lines the ink can go right over them, leaving no lines to be erased. But that seems to be too much extra work...

Anybody have any advice?

ragtag · Post by **ragtag** » Sat Jun 28, 2003 2:32 pm

A lot of people swear by using blue pencils. These could easily be made invisible on the computer afterwards, by simply excluding it (in Photoshop, Paintshop, GIMP or whatever graphics software you use).

I, on the other hand, simply ink on the same page I pencil and do the pencils with a B3 pencil. Once inked, I'm usually able to erase all the pencil lines (I find harder pencils often are harder to erase...as you push them harder against the paper making a slight dent in it's surface). Using contrast or curve tools, you should be able to eliminate what little is left of pencil lines after scanning. In bad cases, you can do a little computer or white paint retouching.

The headache thing might be because your lighttable flickers. If it uses "tube" lights (what are those called), they generally flicker a little, probably at 50-60hz, which is fast enough not to make the flickering easily visible...but slow enough to make your head hurt. Having multiple tube lights usually cancells this out. As a side note, there is a photo shop in the building where I work which sells these cool thin light tables (about 1/2 inch thick) that look like Wacom drawing tablets. They're used for viewing slides, but I'm sure they could be used for drawing as well. I've been thinking of getting one for ages.

Ragnar

gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Sun Jun 29, 2003 3:19 am

Thanks for the advice, Ragnar.

I usually scan my line work in black and white mode, so blue lines will just show up as extra black lines. Or so I've heard... haven't tried it yet, but I read in "Digital Prepress for Comic Books" that non repro blue just shows up as black in a black and white scan. And I never scan in greyscale or color because then the black and white line art ends up with grey or colored pixels that you have to take care of by adjusting the levels... which seems to me to be something that reduces the quality of the picture.

(note: the book "Digital Prepress for Comic Books" and the very informative website www.blambot.com both recomend scanning in black and white only, while the book "Photoshop Wow Book" recomends scanning in in greyscale and then adjusting the levels yourself...)

Anyhow, I'm going to mess around with some of your suggestions and some of my own ideas too this weekend, and see if I come up with something that works well for me. If I do, I'll post it for everybody to see.

Also, any other ideas will also be appreciated.

gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Sun Jun 29, 2003 11:02 pm

Yes!!! Non-repro blue lines do not show up at all in b&w mode with my scanner!! I should have just tried scanning in non-repro blue a long time ago! Never believe everything you read, even from a wonderfully informative book like "Digital Prepress for Comic Books".

Even if I lay down fairly dark lines with a non-repro blue pencil, they just don't show up at all! I'm saved!!!

Post by **Greg Stephens** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 12:32 am

I scan in greyscale mode and then modify the image once it's in digital form.

When I scan, I have a preset adjustment setting that dims most of the non-black lines so they aren't present in the scan itself.

Once I'm working with the image, I adjust the gamma to make the blacks really solid black, the whites truly white. I then select by color to cut the true blacks (adjusted to take colors that are similar, to prevent "jaggies") and paste them to a new layer, fill in everything remaining on the original layer (all the grey junk I don't want) solid white.

It's probably a more involved process than most other people do, but it works for me. I've got it down to a couple simple steps and most things are preset now so that I never end up fiddling with anything- just click click click and it's done.

I've never tried the blue pencil method, but I hear it works brilliantly (as you seem to have discovered).

gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 1:02 am

That's a pretty intense proceedure. One day I will try it out. Is it meant for working at a printable dpi, or is it just for online stuff, or both?

Do you ever have any Hulk-out sessions after tweaking the "gamma"?

Post by **Greg Stephens** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 10:51 am

gazorenzoku wrote: Is it meant for working at a printable dpi, or is it just for online stuff, or both?

I scan and work at 300dpi, which is probably good enough for print, especially considering that my original size is somewhat larger than the intended reading size anyhow.

gazorenzoku wrote:Do you ever have any Hulk-out sessions after tweaking the "gamma"?

Not yet, but I keep hoping.

ragtag · Post by **ragtag** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 3:46 pm

Cool that the blue pencil worked out. I think it depends entierly on the scanner. I used to have an old black and white scanner that didn't pick up red as it used a red light for scanning.

Ragnar

Jason Alderman · Post by **Jason Alderman** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 3:53 pm

...the other option not mentioned here, of course, is inking digitally in Flash or photoshop, using the pressure-sensitive paintbrush tool and a wacom art tablet. Takes a little getting used to, but you can scan in your work, as messy as you want it to be, dim it down by adjusting the opacity or brightness, and then ink in a layer above it.

And this way, you don't get ink all over your fingers! Heh. All this coming from someone who pencils AND inks digitally now... ;)

jason
comics.huah.net

Post by **Greg Stephens** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 4:30 pm

I have tried that- a handful of times- and it takes some getting used to. I'm not comfortable enough with it to enjoy working that way, though. I think that if I got a tablet PC, then that would be a great way to work entirely paperlessly.

gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 8:25 pm

Note: I had to go out and get a water based blue pencil, cause the regular wax based one was resisting ink. The water based one is just a "water based finish", which apparently means that there is still a little bit of wax or something in it that resists ink a little bit, cause it is not entirely perfect. I am going to scan the stuff I did in soon, and then I will know for sure if the lines can be reproduced well or not. As it stands now, they are a little bit broken in places where the ink wouldn't go over the waxiness of the pencil underneath... but it might work out scanning just fine....

About digital inking:

I just love the smell of ink to much. I use Japanese "sumi" ink now, cause it is thicker than western ink. It has a wonderful smell.

But speaking practically, I just still haven't been able to get the same effect with my Wacom tablet that I can with a brush. I guess I have just not practiced enough yet. But also I feel that the tablet is not as sensitive as the brush I use. My brush is incredibly sensitive, so much so that I loose a little bit of the tight control that a less sensitive brush offers. I use a "menso" brush, which is used in Japanese painting.

But I have seen the stuff you do with a tablet, Jason, and it is very expressive. So that gives me hope. Maybe one day there will be a tablet that can answer all my hopes and dreams....

gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Mon Jun 30, 2003 9:44 pm

having said that, I do think Flash is great for some stuff. I like to use different styles for different projects, and the project I am working on right now requires that ultra sensitive brush. But, I am doing some more cartoony stuff on Flash right now that I want to try to get published here in Japan. I am actually using the pencil tool more than I am the brush tool, cause I want a sort of uniform line effect. Flash is the greatest!!!

VECTOR GRAPHICS!!!!!!

losttoy · Post by **losttoy** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 11:15 am

I scan in my black and White art in CMYK color so I can just later remove all of the channels with color and leave the black channel.

gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Mon Jul 14, 2003 7:33 pm

wow, that's totally crazy. I'm going to have to try it sometime. This all made me think: wouldn't it be cool if someone developed ways of scanning in stuff that were intended to be performance art?

Well, I gave up on using the blue pencil. Even the so-called water based one had a waxiness to it, and so the ink didn't always lay on top of the pencils well. So I finally decided to get with what I imagine is at least 90% of the comics world (at least the non-digital-inking comics world) and use light pencils. I made a practice sketch (http://www.vince-coleman.com/illustration_01.html) with pencils, inked on top of it with a brush, erased the pencils lightly, scanned it, and colored it in Flash. It worked so well I finally decided to go ahead and use that technique for comics. I have done about 3 comic pages like that since.

(the comic stuff I am working on now is designed to be published in the print world as a 3 issue miniseries, so nothing is online from it at this time. I'll post some images from it on my site as an ad, and I might post a page or two as a preview too)

Anyhow, thanks to everybody for all the input!!! I am finally free from my lighttable. Though I now noticed that it is easier to draw on the light table because of the angle and stuff, so until I get a cool drawing table I might just use the light table, without the light on of course, to draw on...

Of course just because I started this topic doesn't mean that I can end it... still interested in hearing how everyone else works...

Post by **Greg Stephens** » Tue Jul 15, 2003 11:01 am

In case anybody hasn't seen this, there's a video of Penny-Arcade's Gabe demonstrating how he does digital inking. He scans in his pencils and does all the blacks in Photoshop. It's pretty amazing, really, and puts to rest the accusation that P-A is all cut-&-paste art.

The main file is here and Rocketbox has a mirror here.

Dan Hernandez · Post by **Dan Hernandez** » Thu Jul 31, 2003 10:05 pm

Personally I hate how the blue pencil feels when i draw, and I'm very heavy handed and erasing Non Repo pencils is a pain in the ass so I use tracing paper. The only problem is finding one that has the most minimal amount of wrinklage (sp?) when you ink on it, as well as one the takes the ink correctly. I tried a whole crapload of expensive tracing papers/ Drafting Films ($8-$10 for a pad of 50)and wasn't happy with any of them. One day i ran out of paper and i wasn't anywhere near an art supply store so I picked up a pad at wal-mart. I don't know about its archival qualities but Mead Academie tracing paper has worked the best thus far and it only cost a buck and a half, two dollars.

gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Fri Aug 01, 2003 4:14 am

Greg Stephens wrote:In case anybody hasn't seen this, there's a video of Penny-Arcade's Gabe demonstrating how he does digital inking. He scans in his pencils and does all the blacks in Photoshop. It's pretty amazing, really, and puts to rest the accusation that P-A is all cut-&-paste art.

The main file is here and Rocketbox has a mirror here.

I've seen this before. It certainly is cool! I wonder what DPI he is working at.... I now do all my inking by hand, scan in with photoshop, convert to a vector graphic in FLash, and then print out the line art on my printer or color it in if it is going onto the web (I don't have a color printer). I LOVE IT!!!! I LOVE FLASH!!!! I love vector graphics!!

... but, I also love inking by hand!

I have finally found a process that I love.

But, the other day, I rediscovered the fun of inking directly onto the page, with no pencil drawing. I only use it for experimental stuff that I do in my spare time, but it is lots of fun. I just use those cheap felt tip pens with the 03, 05 type stuff written on them. I know it's not archival, but it's just for fun. And it IS tons of fun!

DAN - I hear what you're saying. I have decided that blue pencils are for the Devil and Mike Mignola (who I think uses them... and he actually might be the devil...). Though Mike Mignola's blue pencil sketches look absolutely kick *ss, alas those pencils are just not for me.

I can't believe you are using tracing paper of all things. How interesting. What pens do you use? What do you do with the tracing paper after you ink on it? Do you scan it in? Photocopy it? Drip blood on it and send it to Mike Mignola?

Did anybody know that Mike Mignola's name is pronounced "Minyola"? What a shock! Why didn't he tell me that when I first started to like his work? Now I have to know him by a whole different name! I think artists/writers with names that may not be pronounced how they seem should include pronunciation keys in every work they do, so that fans don't have to change their perception of the artist halfway through when they find out the real pronunciation!!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Aug 11, 2003 9:11 pm

gazorenzoku wrote:
DAN - I hear what you're saying. I have decided that blue pencils are for the Devil and Mike Mignola (who I think uses them... and he actually might be the devil...). Though Mike Mignola's blue pencil sketches look absolutely kick *ss, alas those pencils are just not for me.

I can't believe you are using tracing paper of all things. How interesting. What pens do you use? What do you do with the tracing paper after you ink on it? Do you scan it in? Photocopy it? Drip blood on it and send it to Mike Mignola?

Actually the reason i tried tracing paper is because I read something about Seth that said he inked on a tracing paper overlay. I haven't heard of too many other cartoonists who do it this way but i have really enjoyed it, It does take some getting used to though.

Actually i use a brush (#2 water color), I haven't really tried pens on tracing paper, I am not very good at using pens. After I ink on it generally i will just scan it and do my coloring or grey scale in photoshop

Dan Hernandez · Post by **Dan Hernandez** » Mon Aug 11, 2003 9:12 pm

that was me.

gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 7:09 pm

Interesting. Do you ever have any problems with ink smearing?

Dan Hernandez · Post by **Dan Hernandez** » Fri Aug 15, 2003 2:05 pm

only when i put my hand in the wet ink . the only real draw back is that the paper will wrinkle, the degree to which it will wrinkle all depends on the paper. drafting vellum won't wrinkle but sometimes the ink doesn't adhere properly, thinner papers (usually the more expensive tracing papers) wrinkle like crazy, i've thrown out an eight dollar pad of forty because it was pretty much worthless for inking. another tip is to use really black ink so that you aren't constantly going over your blacks to make them black, that just makes more wrinkles and Wrinkles equal grey spots when you scan. Like i said i don't know about its archival qualities but i prefer to use Mead Academie tracing paper.

Most people scan as line art right away I scan grey scale because in my opinion its more accurate in my line reproduction and then i tweek things out to my liking and convert to black and white to make my lines a true black if necesary additional cleanup. because of how i color i then switch back to grey/color to finish them.

Oh and i just thought of this, tape down one side of the paper that way it doesn't move on you. the reason i say one side is that i like to be able to flip the paper up to make sure i am inking it correctly, also it lets me make changes to the original drawing if i want to.

gazorenzoku · Post by **gazorenzoku** » Fri Aug 15, 2003 10:12 pm

Dan Hernandez wrote:only when i put my hand in the wet ink .

That sounds like it could be the name for one of those autobiography style comics...

Dan Hernandez wrote:the only real draw back is that the paper will wrinkle, ... and Wrinkles equal grey spots when you scan.

Hmmm..... have you ever tried putting wrinkled paper between heavy books for a day or so? I had a problem with some wrinkly paper once, and I was able to fix it by putting it between some heavy books. Though I never used that paper again because I hated having to wait a whole day or so to scan after I finished drawing. Actually, at that time I was doing ink wash, and I found that if I wet the paper first and then glued the edges of the paper to a board, the paper stretches when it dries, so it doesn't wrinkle up when you paint really wet ink washes over it. Well, actually, it does wrinkle up, but each time it dries it gets pulled flat again, so when you are done with the ink wash you just cut it free and it has no wrinkles then. But I'm not doing ink washes on my current project....

Dan Hernandez wrote:Like i said i don't know about its archival qualities but i prefer to use Mead Academie tracing paper.

Yeah.... archival concerns.... I generally use sumi ink on illustration paper (here in Japan they usually use this stuff called "Kent Paper", so I also use it), which as far as I know has great archival qualities. I have also been staying away from those cheap felt tip pens to ink with. HOWEVER, recenly I have rediscovered the sheer fun of inking with those felt tip pens, and after I finish my current project I am going to do a whole comic in felt tip pens because it is just so darn fun! And the coolest thing is, I realized the other day that if I scan everything in, the originals are free to get as grey and discolored as they want. If the whole thing is saved on a CD, who cares if the pens/paper are not archival?! Of course, I still love archival materials simply because they have their own great quailties. I like brushes, I love sumi ink (the smell especially), etc. But I also love those cheap, non archival pens, and now I can use them too!

Dan Hernandez wrote:Most people scan as line art right away I scan grey scale because in my opinion its more accurate in my line reproduction and then i tweek things out to my liking and convert to black and white to make my lines a true black if necesary additional cleanup. because of how i color i then switch back to grey/color to finish them.

I can't imagine scanning in in grey scale anymore, though I used to do it. I just love scanning in in black and white too much. But to each his own. As long as you are enjoying the scanning process and are satisfied with what you get out of it, then that's great!

Zwol.org

free me from my light table!!

free me from my light table!!

saved at last!

Another option might be...