Hi all. I’ve got a question regarding using Pen Displays/Tablets.
Do you use the display/tablet from draft to final product or a mix of traditional, tracing and colourising your physical work for digital use?
I’ve recently started using a Pen Display and am finding it useful but also that it sometimes feels like I’m double handling my work.
I’m used to more traditional mediums, pencil and paper, for designing. Basically I’ve been doing drawings in my sketch book and then tracing and colourising them in Photoshop.
Since you mentioned Photoshop, are you referring to drawing illustrations? I’m asking because for general-purpose graphic design layout work, Photoshop is the wrong tool.
I’m going to assume this is for illustration, not design. I felt that way too. Doing sketches on paper then scanning/photographing them and finishing them in Photoshop seemed like duplication of effort. But then I learned to separate my art into hand-drawn and digital.
Now, when doing digital, I sketch directly on the computer (I use a wacom with my desktop unit at home.) I do a layer generally referred to as a red-line layer, with the pen set to have no lag (no smoothing) and just do my sketches, in red on that layer. You can use black to look more like pencil sketch if you want. Up to you. Then I lock that layer and do the black-line (inking) all on one layer, then use that layer to build the color under. Or if I’m doing fully ‘painted’ with no inking, I’ll just have at it. Once I have the general wash done, I’ll switch the redline to the top layer and toggle it on and off if I need it for reference.
That’s just one way of doing it. It’s really hard though to give up the sketch on paper thing. I still sketch in my sketchbook to put down ideas or make studies of things I might want to do later. I love doing forced perspective sketches because it makes you ‘see’ the way things truly interact rather than guessing. I still like doing pen and ink too. It just depends on why I’m doing it. Digital is fast and I use it for quick stuff like art prompts in online chats. Hand drawn I do for my own joy of it.
Thanks for the replies. I’ll give those tips a try when working on my next project.