Computers and Strip Art

[SIP]

Hello all.

Some questions/thoughts for the aspiring comic strip artists amongst us (of which I know there are many).

My ramble....
Having just received my latest (official 2000AD business) round of 'figures too stiff' criticisms, I have been reflecting on some of the irritating drawing ?habits? that I seem to have acquired in the last year or so.  My current approach is as follows....

1. Reference every character I draw to within an inch of its life.
This basically involves endlessly thumbing through a large pile of anatomy and figure drawing books to try and get my figures right.

2. Having finally sketched something, I scan it onto my PC, open it in Photoshop, edit it with a drawing tablet, reverse it, edit it some more, print it in reverse at the size I want it, trace it onto the actual page, then ink it.

3. Having done this for EVERY panel (sigh), I then scan the whole page back into the PC (in several parts as I don't yet own an A3 scanner), open it in
Photoshop, then edit everything again until I'm reasonably happy with it.

4. Letter it. Finished (unless I then decide to edit something else later - which almost always happens).

It used to take me a full day to do a completed page, now it can take me easily 3,4 or 5 times that long.

My questions.....
I wondered if any other artists out there (amateur and professional alike)have adopted a method/process similar to the above?
If so, do you find it a blessing - or a curse?
Is it necessary to do all this nowadays to try and produce anything remotely approaching professional quality?
Does it all provide too big a safety net?
Do you think it takes a lot of the skill (and most of the fun) out of the whole process?

I guess I'm just curious to know if I?m alone in this.

Please feel free to tell me 'I just draw it straight onto the page'. I can take it.

Maybe I can't, I?ll let you know.

Regards
Simon.

[Natsan]

Quite frankly I don't think I know anyone who goes to that much trouble,and personally speaking doing all that would drive me mad.
To be honest it all sounds a little anal and if you're faffing around with it that much I'm not entirely surprised that it coming out stiff-looking.
You can produce professional quality comics with nothing than a pencil,rubber,brush and a pot of ink-a computer doesn't make it any more 'professional' than a page done with a biro,it's an artists talent that decides whether the art produced is 'professional quality' or not,not the tools.

My advice? Loosen up and produce more work,but know also when to let a piece of art go-overworking something is often as bad as doing too little.Quantity will lead to quality as practice will make perfect!

[Conexus]

yeah, i'm no real artist, but what Nat says does ring true to me. One of the things (actually, about the only thing) i wasaa praised about when i had art lessons was that i had 'life' in my drawings, in particular my sketches. And I reckon this must have had at least a little to do with the fact that i drew straight on with a biro, not even doing a rough out line with a pencil, as drawing with a pen, makes drawing flow more, if you know what I mean. So yeah, take Nat's advice; draw it all on paper first, and scan it into the computer only for final effects like speech bubbles and colouring

[Bolt-01]

Simon- definately try to get some work done by just 'slapping it down' on the paper and inking it quickly. The increase in turnover for you will result in more experience in layout etc and the knowledge you have obviously picked up in your more convoluted methods will still be there.

Bolt-01: all the PC does for me is tidy it up.

[pauljholden]

Comics, I think, (esp 2000AD/action comics in general) are often more about action than they are accuracy - step away from the computer and start drawing lots and lots of new drawings. Grab a bic biro and a 100 sheet pad and start churning out sketches. Make some curve shapes and draw figures around those shapes - use the anatomy books to get it 'rightish' - but don't worry about getting it right. Accuracy is not the goal.

-pj

[SIP]

Thanks for the comments everyone (although I have read some interviews in the past and know of a couple of pro's who utilise some of this approach!).

I am indeed doing what you advise at the moment - just doing it straight on like I used to do.  I guess somewhere along the line I must have become preoccupied with what others thought of what I was doing - rather than just enjoying myself like I did when I was a child.

So - not sure what reaction will be to the next thing I do , but at least I will have more fun in the process.

So in advance, sorry PVS if this doesn't quite come off!!!

[Woolly]

Personally, i wont spend any more than 2 days on a piece of work.
Way i see it, if i was doing this professionally, i'd be wanting at least a page of work a day to make the earnings worthwhile!

Not saying i'll ever work professionally in this field, but we can all dream!

[Dark Jimbo]

In my dreams (where I work at 2000ad) I aim to get two to two-and-a-half black and white pages done a week, otherwise it simply isn't economically viable. I can draw fine (well... reasonably) when I labour over a piece of work, but the thing I personally have found hardest to master since uni has been speed. I just can't draw that fast! And though your art is frankly stunning, it sounds like it's taking you a horrifically long time, and I would work at getting a balance between the two.

[SIP]

Yeah Jimbo, I agree about the time (and thanks for the compliment).

I guess even using this method I still average about 2-3 pages a week (working full time on a standard page).  It's not necessarily the time it's taking me this way, more that it becomes a labour doing it.

Regarding page layouts - I do all that beforehand on scrap paper.  I know exactly what my plan is, I guess I'm just lazy on re-drawing. I have never used a PC to re-jig layouts. I sketch something and if I think it's good enough, rather than re-draw it at the appropriate size onto the finished page, I scan it, amend it if necessary and print it out at the correct size.

This method has arisen this year due to the fact that I draw the majority of my stuff sitting in a car on my work lunch hours.  

As has been documented here before, I have a fairly hyperactive child who requires my full attention on weekends and evenings (and starts her day at 3-4am nine days out of ten) so I do all my strip work in sketch pads (it can be difficult to do a proper page of artwork sitting in a Vauxhall Corsa, although I do manage it occasionally!).  Therefore when I get the chance to transfer it to the actual page I simply don't have time for redrawing, hence this long-winded computer method was born.

Perhaps it's a false economy.
Either way, I want to recapture some of my earlier energy for drawing so I'm going cold turkey on the PC for a while.