I hung out with Scott Kurtz today and tried to show him my technique for drawing comics in Illustrator. He showed me how he drew his comic first and I went in and showed what I did. We came to the realization that what works for me does not necessarily work the same for him, nor for Kris Straub of Starslip Crisis.
Some of the things Scott really needed was an accurate brush design similar to what he had already, and the eraser function to work without distorting his clean line art. The methods we came up with to do that added a lot of time to each page. He draws his webcomic very fast and does not need an added couple of hours correcting lines that could be fixed easier in Photoshop.
When I complete a page there is a lot of extra details I put in with an added layer on top of the layers stack where I go in and add white highlights or random extra details or highlights or correct ink lines. He does not need to do any of that because he works in very clean ink lines. Photoshop delivers clean lines for him quickly and easily that is just too time-consuming in Illustrator where the remedy might be using the pen tool which takes a lot of finese.
So Kris, Scott and I learned that what each of us uses individually is the right program for each of us. Simple. Except Scott needs his line art in vector format. So he posted this video on PVPonline.com today hoping that someone may be out there in internet land with the idea or ability to help. I know enough about Illustrator to do what I do, but I don’t know enough to help him achieve the things he needs.
Maybe someone out there can help. If you have any ideas send them to Scott at his www.pvponline.com strip. Or post suggestions here in this thread.
Here’s the video…
10 Responses to “What’s The Vector, Victor?”
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Do you have Illustrator CS2 or CS3?
If yes I would keep drawing in Photoshop. Then place the Photoshop file in Illustrator and use Live Trace to turn pixels into vectors.
Save your art as a .psd or .tif file, then in Illustrator CS2 or CS3 do
1) File>Place
2) Object > Live Trace > Tracing Options
Preset: Comic art
Turn on Preview
If it looks good hit Trace otherwise tweak the settings.
3) To turn the traced result into an editable vector object hit Expand.
I think Live Trace does a pretty good job of accurately converting your lines into vector shapes. Illustrators help will explain all the settings.
Martin
A couple of techniques I use:
http://www.chrisdeutsch.de/stuff/illustrator-tutorial/thats_clarence_oveur_over.html
Hope this is helpful.
After you ink in Photoshop and have the look you want save it. Open the file in Illustrator or copy and paste it into Illustrator. Then try using the Live Trace tool. There are lots of different settings to try with the LIve Trace tool. If you are able to find a setting that works without needing any editing then thats great.
If you need to edit though try doing it with the pen tools, rather than the eraser tool. It does require some learning, but its worth the time spent.
If you would like me to take a look at a file then feel free to email me finished photohsop line art saved as a .jpg and I’ll see if I can find a good trace setting, or if it is another busted solution. my email is info at aiburn.com
Also, if the tracing method works you could also consider going straight from scan to a trace and then clean up the vector scan with the pen tool in Illustrator.
Let me know if this helps or if you find another solution that worked. Thanks.
I myself have also wanted to ink digitally and after watching your video I thought it was time to go for it, seeing as I just got my hands on a tablet. I to have hopes of keeping as much of my work in vector form as I can. I tried my best to keep neat in Illustrator so as not to break lines since there wasn’t a way to quickly erase like in photoshop, when I recalled a method that is used in traditional inking. That is the use of whiteout. I don’t know if you have already found a solution to your problem and are now working in vector. If that is the case I would love to hear what you came up with. But this is what I actually started doing after hours of frustration.
I simply alternated the stroke and the fill. I would use a brush and keep the stroke black and the fill white. Then when I needed to erase I would switch from the black stroke to the white fill and simply white over whatever it is I didn’t care to keep. Now I am not sure how this will effect printing, since I am still new to Illustrator but I assume it will be the same as using whiteout traditionally. This even sped things up a bit as I didn’t have to flip the pen to erase. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you. I just started doing this myself but so far so good. Perhaps you can give it a better field testing.
Also if any Illustrator veterans out there know if this technique actually is not a good way to go about it for whatever reason please feel free to chime in I would like to know myself. Thanx.
Daniel SMT Smith
http://xeradon.deviantart.com/
SMT– I use that method when I draw. I don’t have time to erase a lot of the things I would if I was drawing with pencil, so I just go in with a top layer and add all the white details or clean up the lines that are messy. It’s a lot easier at the end to do this or as I’m working to add a WHITE LAYER over every thing I’m working on. So one to clean-up for hair, one for backgrounds, etc. YOUR ART–Looks good. There are some things you need to work out but you are on your way. Stick with it. Try to draw every day for a marked improvement in your work. If you want to draw comics for a living you will need to draw every day so the earlier you can get into that habbit in life the better it will be. Try examining your favorite artist by blowing up his work on a scanner to 11×17 and see how his work looks big, then work on drawing that same size. Draw based on his layouts and try to complete one book a month like that. Even if it’s only for yourself. You will start improving faster that way. Also draw as many women as you can. Look at models, magazines, draw people in public, etc. Your ability to draw great looking women will determine your ability to get work later on. GOOD LUCK!
Hey Scott and Brian. I think I may have a solution for your Illustrator woes. There is a tutorial on the pod cast Pixelperfect episode 67
http://revision3.com/pixelperfect/
Good luck!!!
Eric
Heya! I understand you’re dilemma about illustrator. Ive been playing with it myself trying to get the results i want but they never turn out right.
Some people suggest using the live trace in illustrator but personally i think it requires the artist to focus too much on tracing the image with a marker to be near perfect (and we all know that tracing a picture by hand is just a fucking hassle)
Ive used flash for ages, and i gotta say its so much better if you just wanna make some simple lineart. Now you wanna use thick lines but you want to trace up close. Now there is a tool in flash under “modify” that allows you to “thicken” your shapes. Basically you lassoo the brush you wanna be thicker, go to “modify > shape > expand fill”. There you will have a little window pop up saying how much you want to expand or contract the fill. It works great with line art.
Why not use the brush tool rather than the pencil.
Use a heaver brush zoom in, draw your heavier line.
(Settings are in the brush palette)
to make edits quickly,
before you de-select the stroke,
draw the correct line, and it will update the
original stroke automatically.
To remove portions after the fact,
you will need to expand the line, ungroup the object,
and use the pathfinder to remove the area.
object>expand> then press ctrl + shift + g to ungroup.
do the same with the area to be removed,
then use the pathfinder to subtract the new line,
and press expand.
It’s actually really easy.
(especially if you don’t release the first stroke)
Quick tip for teens: I learned this one from Ray Frenden, illustrator extraordinaire… use Manga Studio EX, it has the best line quality by far, and it scales nicely. Much better quality for black and white lines compared with Illustrator and Flash. If you want to keep the rasterized line quality of Photoshop, just stick with Photoshop. Love yer work, BTW.
Ah, but as awesome as Manga Studio EX is, it does not work well on Windows Vista!
I had to uninstall it after most of it’s features don’t work. I am waiting for an upgrade from them that will hopefully fix all the functionality.