Great stuff. I usually draw/sketch in black and white with pen/paper, then use Live Trace in illustrator to clean it up, then into photoshop to color.
Always feel free to create a tutorial with your process. That goes for any of you guys. I'd like to see more Fan Art Tutorials! LMK if you guys find this useful!
I didn't take you that way. What can you tell us about how you use the pen tool? Why do you use it so much? Pros and cons? Discuss!
jestermon Sorry If I sounded a little aggressive, it wasn't my intention. I also use the pen tool a lot, actually I prefer it. From my experience, you can be very acurate but it can take a lot of time. As with everything, the more you use it, the quicker and beter you will get at it.
It's all cool, dudes. By all means, please continue to share here how you illustrate and other techniques you may use. All the better if you want to make some tutorials!
My process is very simple for black and whites. 1. Scan your black and white sketch. I usually draw in pencil and go over with ink markers. 2. In Photoshop, make adjustments in Levels dialogue to get the lines you want to keep black as can be, and the whites and light grays to white. 3. In Photoshop, make any changes to the outside edges, but you want this to be as defined as possible. Once happy, save as jpg, but be sure it is a decent size. 4.Open in Illustrator. Select your drawing, look for the "Live Trace" button/dialogue and click it. There is a slider to help define the threshold. At this point you can save it as an illustrator file, which should be a vector drawing, meaning a relatively small file that you can re-size to any size without degradation. You can color it in illustrator, but I usually get it to print size, this may turn it back to a rasterized image though, depending on your file type. Here's a relatively straight forward tutorial. Designscrapbook: Illustrator Tutorial -Convert sketch into vector with Illustrator Live Trace This one is a bit more complex, but Illustrator's Live Trace: Sketch to Vector | Smashing Magazine
I tend to use dp's methods as well but the vid you posted sq7 was very informative. I've worked with illustrator for years and they've been adding little shortcuts and stuff that could speed time and this seems to be one that I missed. I also have a tablet that I prefer drawing freehand with the brush tool in illustrator, so being able to edit rough sketches like that is very handy. Will have to give it a go the next chance I get.
While I can't comment to much on illustrating techniques, I would like to remind anyone out there that jpegs degrade a little every time you save them. I like to use PDF or my favorite is a PNG. The PNG format will give you a transparent background, so you can isolate your art from the "white space" and be able to place them in other files/art easier. I was seriously so pissed off for the longest time trying to make that work until a friend let me know about that file format. Something else I found that inspires me to create more is the FZD School of Design They have a youtube page where he demonstrates digital painting. Amazing stuff. While I will never create anything like that, there is something about it that kick starts my creative side. He even did a "Transformers" one (Episode 14) that I could see helping out someone understand how to put a character into a setting. Have 45mins to an hour? check it out. My intro into it was Episode 55 "surrounded by design" he takes images he took and uses the color to digitally paint something else. I can't really explain it beyond that. Seriously worth watching at least a couple videos, perfect for a 3 day weekend! Randy!