Today I dashed off a few attempts at digital inking.
I'm doing research for DWWP vol. 2 and tried out two ways of doing digital inking in Photoshop, using a Wacom tablet, for a small section about it I am writing.
For the first drawing, I scanned a panel I had already penciled for "Drawn OnwarD", reduced the layer opacity to about 30%, then made a new layer where I "inked" the pencils with the Pencil tool and one of the brush presets that gave a slightly charcoal-y (though too uniform, I think) line.
For this second drawing I did a very quick, simplified copy of the method Brian Bolland describes in some detail here: I "penciled" directly in Photoshop using my Wacom tablet. Then reduced the opacity to 20% and made a second pencil layer where I refined the drawing a bit. I faded that one too (reducing the first layers opacity to 10%--I should probably have just turned it off) and made an "ink" layer. I inked following Bolland's specs, using the Pencil tool with a brush size of 5 or 9. I did a background sketch but didn't finish it. I may go back and do that later in order to play with using the Pen tool to make perspective lines and so on.
In both cases I have deleted the pencil layers to make these finished jpegs.
I have to say I am pleased with how these turned out and also with how relatively easy it was to get a hang of the method(s). More to come...?
8 comments:
For my money Corel Painter is better for digital inking than Photoshop.
Thanks for weighing in, Derik, I've been meaning to pick your brain about this. I've heard elsewhere (http://www.methart.com/tutorials/digi-ink.html)that Painter is better specifically because you can rotate the screen like a piece of paper as you draw. Are there other advantages?
Hmm. I've never used the Rotate option... I'll have to look into that.
I like Painter for inking because you have a lot more control and variation in the "brushes" and "pencils" and many other ways to replicate different media. Crayons, charcoal, paints, etc.
Lately I've been experimenting with pencilling and inking in Painter, then coloring in Photoshop (because it does deal with color management a bit better). Painter lets you save as Photoshop files, to the transition is smooth.
This is really interesting, Matt - I like both drawings a lot. This is definitely something I'd like to explore further - please keep us posted on your experiments!
I've been using Photoshop for inking and so forth with the latest macbook, the trackpad lets you turn things on a whim. Thanks for the inking tips, this method will be helpful!
Matt, Thanks for posting. Haven't seen you, of course, since Jessica and you showed me how to ink with a nib pen at PNCA in Portland about 18 months ago. Have drawn two comics since then. But, since I don't have a lot of time, I intend to get a Cintiq and start doing digital inking in the next few weeks. So, everybody's comments here are appreciated. Hope you and the family are well and drawing a lot, etc. Cheers, Greg T.
Hi Matt,
Happy New Year! I was trying to remember some stuff I had read about digital inking - specifically about smoothing. I think using a tablet it is quite common to have a scratchier shakier line. Here is a great run down on different software and the quality of line they can create (btw, I really like Sketchbook Pro - you should check this one out too!)
http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/tutorials/lines/linework.htm
thanks for the link!
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