I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.

[dolari]

For the first time in many many many years, I've changed the way I draw comics. Normally I pencil in the image, ink it with a ball point pen, scan it in, and color with Paint Shop Pro.

Thanks to Erin, who introduced me to and helped me into Illustrator, I'm now just pencilling on paper, and the rest is all Illustrator. I guess if this was a CD it'd be ADDD instead of AADD now. :)



Here are the original pencils for today's comic. Normally I draw a more detailed pencil, because it's easier to ink and threshold those lines than faint sketchy lines, but since I'm doing a new inking method, the pencils don't need to be so detailed.



Inks are done with the Calligraphic Brush tool in Illustrator now. Makes the lines smoother and flowier than my usual style (I kinda like the scratchy raw style and try to emulate it here), and I can keep the lines antialiased (and vectored!) while adding color on another layer.



Here we have the color layer in Illustrator. Using the (unecessarily complex) Live Paint tool, I've managed to (for the first time) doing an entire layer of color on it's own. Makes it easier to preserve the line work this way, than when I was inking by hand, then scanning and thresholding.



Anyways, here's the final product, with the inks overlaid on the color. I think it really comes out nice, and is a LOT cleaner than my usual work.

Today's comic marks the first time I've NEVER used Paint Shop Pro to make a comic. :)

(Please ignore the little color glitch at the top of the color comics...won't see that in the comic :) )

Comments

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Oh, neat! Dang, that coloring's gorgeous.

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

Thanks. ^_^

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

This is gorgeous! How do you find the work flow? Is it easier, longer/shorter, or more satisfying. The vector editor I've ever been any good with was Fireworks (which I add text and balloons with on my web comics), though Inkscape is almost looking usable and interesting (partly because it has a lot of the same vector object combinations), but only exports in PNG.

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

The workflow is definately shorter. The inking literally comes out like lightning now, since Illustrator is doing most of the work. My only dissapointment is it really doesn't like to do 90 degree turns, and will smooth out things I don't want smoothed (Carrie's eyes, for instance, are one pen stroke, but three illustrator strokes).

[gwenners.livejournal.com]

BEAUTIFUL work!

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

Thanks. ^_^

[http://users.livejournal.com/strangelv__/]

*Strangelv cheers

I've been learning Inkscape myself. I actually finally made it past the base of the learning curve with Xara LX, but found I couldn't export vector results into anything anything else could read.

I have my one and perhaps only thing done with Xara LX here:

http://www.siglib.org/tutorial/

Okay, the bit on top was with a camera that couldn't see blue, but that's a story for another time...

Inkscape was easy to adapt to after learning Xara LX. I DO NOT recommend using the graphics program that comes with OpenOffice unless you have something to guide you through it. It was a pain and I gave up.

Presumably the MS Windows version of Xara doesn't have the show-stoppers that its Linux port does.

Also, the author of Casey and Andy has a tutorial on using vector to draw cartoons that he produced when he was making his story with Alice, Wendy, Dorothy, Mary Poppins, and Ernst Rutherford:

http://www.cheshirecrossing.net/howto/howto.php?page=0

I need to look at that again now that I've finally gotten somewhere with vector art...

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

I've tried Inkscape as well and like it, but it isn't quite complete enough for me yet (and only exports to PNG!). In fact I just wrote a comment elsewhere (http://thepinksylphide.com/2008/11/16/on-the-lack-of-open-source-comic-software/comment-page-1#comment-10907) on that.

I still add my text and balloons using an old version of Fireworks MX 2004 - it was the similarity to that which attracted me to Inkscape. One day, I might swap over...

[mikeyarrum.livejournal.com]

*applause*

Yes, there is a certain freedom to digital art.

[achernow.livejournal.com]

Illustrator rocks. I've only used it a few times, but the few times I have, I've been tremendously impressed by it.

-Adam

[amw.livejournal.com]

Very cool. I really like the color layer by itself, it's a cool effect. Looks kinda like those rotoscoped movies.

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :)

[taraxoxo.livejournal.com]

Nice cartoon :)
The technique sounds interesting.