But you're so much more fun to reply to Val! All those
little options you add in to give lots of room for reply!
Lots of art talk in this post - if drawing doesn't interest
you at all, may pay to skip this message.
> Out of curiousity, are there ANY tables in your
> apartment?
Any flat surface at least 50% bigger than the page you are
working on can do fine.
> Have you been drawing for a few years, or just beginning?
You can start out on pretty much anything and adapt as you
find comfortable. I use a writing slope (try looking that
up instead!) that I made decades ago in trade school (knew
I'd one day have a use for it!).
> a drafting table isn't all
> that important unless you're like... doing big drafts of
> stuff and professional comic pages n junk.
Correct. The pantograph (the 'arm' part) can be handy, but
not required. It needs to be flat and smooth. Smoother is
generally better, hence drafting boards with laminated
surfaces are nice. Smooth prevents little marks appearing
in your work (chip board / particle board is NO good!) and
means that when you want to rotate your work, it doesn't
hook or stick on surface imperfections. Nothing like
having a page hook and creasing it, or tear it, or slip and
knock over a bottle of indian ink while inking and cause
bulk destruction... You get the idea. Tokes uses Plexus
plastic polish (made in the USA, often available at
motorbike and boat stores) or Mr Sheen (furniture polish -
probably available most places) to keep his board slick.
Don't want tape or rubber goo, ink or graphite marks on the
board messing up your work.
> I draw and ink just about anywhere, my lap, my bed, the
> floor, at work on a cluttered desk...
As long as your page is supported on a flat, smooth, hard
surface and you have room to work. Obviously too cluttered
is a problem. I usually draw on my dining room table with
the writing slope or if I need to use the light box, on the
kitchen bench. This is obviously easier when one lives
alone! Yes, it is a VERY good idea to have a separate area
to draw - that way you can sit down and draw when you want
or need as opposed to having to rearrange the house first.
Those of us with 'cluttered work areas' know all about that
problem! *cough*
> the dining room table if I know I'm not going to be
> walked in on...
Val feels a little 'self conscious' about 'sharing' her art
with her family - if you're familiar with her work, you may
understand why. I probably would be too in her situation!
Incidentally, I have raised this issue with JMH previously
and he replied he draws on an old, smooth, wooden desk -
the kind that is flat like a table I presume, as opposed to
the type one may have used in primary school (if you date
back that far...). Though having said this, the print
"Sessions" has him drawing at a 'proper' drawing table. I
guess we all have dreams; especially about Des leaning over
your shoulder, Celeste leaning on the desk and a topless
vixen posing for you. ;-)
> I've only ever encountered and used 'em twice in my life
-> 1 at animation school
> where the paper was stuck to pegs and therefore didn't
> fall off so
> that was okay I guess, and then my fiance's while I was
> visiting him,
> and couldn't for the life of me get the bloody paper to
> stay where i wanted...
Tokes is a pro artist (who actually makes his living
drawing and teaching drawing) and uses a 'proper drafting
table' type setup so he can get the angle at what ever
suits him, since he puts out a full page comic strip and a
poster in Live To Ride magazine every month in addition to
what ever else may come along. He uses tape to hold the
paper where he wants. Good masking tape _shouldn't_
generally mark your work - cheap stuff does. Magic tape is
Tokes preference; yes it costs more, but it works better.
I only use masking tape when airbrushing as I need the
strength for the size of paper (eg ~A2, t-shirts) and am
now using magic tape when drawing.
> I like flipping the paper around as I ink n' draw.
Flipping while drawing is almost a must, I reckon, though
if positioned correctly, you don't need to flip your page
when inking, that can be a bit tricky if inking on paper
with a mapping dip pen (I'll explain how to get around this
soon!). Tokes likes the page stuck while inking to help
prevent slips and ensure gravity is consistent with his
line flows. Not essential, but I understand his point.
> Same issue with the paper unless I was using the stuff
> they used in class in which case it still drove me batty
> because there
> were only so many ways i could tilt the damned thing...
Something that I've learnt that has 'taken away the magic'
is only amatuers try to sketch, ink and colour on the one
page. Pros will use at least three and often up to six
pieces of substrate (not always paper) to draw one picture!
Sketch on one page, ink on another, then copy that page
(photocopiers or scanner + laser printer are wonderful!)
and colour. Save SOOOOOO many hassles!
> Given the kind of paper i'd usually use before I got
> cardstock...
Bond paper (ie, photocopy paper) is fine for sketching and
you _can_ ink on it with fine liner, though dip pen tends
to get some bleed and prone to snagging the tip that in
turn results in splatters that need to be digitally
corrected. Ever tried to remove indian ink from paper?
Once you get into using dip pens, fine liners feel clunky,
archaic and inflexbile. The expression available with a
dip pen just canes fine liners. I haven't used a fine
liner since Tokes put me onto dip pens. They take a bit
more to get used to, but you can go from super fine lines
through to big, bold lines in the one hand motion - from
equivalent to 0.2 fine liner through to a 2.0! Even bullet
point fine liners can't do that.
When inking, using tracing film (plastic film) kicks tail.
The smoothness, snag-free drawing is just awesome. Pushing
a map pen tends to result in tip dig-in, that in turn makes
holes in the page and splatters (as well as ruining the
nib). This doesn't happen with the trace film - though the
process is a little more envolved.
Photocopy (or scan-print) your sketch to the size you want
(another advantage of digital!). Get a piece of cardboard
(heavy backing cardboard or ligh, smooth wood, like MDF)
and spray it with an aerosol contact adhesive. Stick the
copy to the board. Get a piece of trace film (the film is
about 4x the cost of trace paper, but is thicker, stronger
and water proof). Spray the photocopy/board again with the
adhesive and let it dry for about 5 seconds. Press the
film onto the copy/board ensuring it is flat (no bubbles)
and well stuck down. This will now stay flat, irrespective
of how wet you may make the page. Use your dip pen and ink
away!
Peel off the film from the copy/board once the ink is
totally dry (depending on how heavy you go, this can take
up to 3 hours!). Remove the photocopy page and discard,
keeping the board for future use.
If you are going to colour, photocopy the film page and
colour the copy. That way if you change your mind (have an
oopsie), just copy again. The film comes out as white when
put in a scanner/copier and the advantage of scan/print is
you can easily clean up any little splatter marks or
wayward lines. Having scanned in, you can either CG
colour, or print it out (use a laser printer for hand
colouring, inkjets are not as colour fast) and use paints,
pencils, inks or what ever pleases you (though I personally
don't recommend crayon).
> I accept that I'll always be an amateur; I can't even
> stand/use/afford Photoshop! (what the fuck is >sooo
damned important about being able to > digitally colour
anyway?
CG (or 'Didge Colour' as I refer it - short for Digital)
lets you do things with cost and space effectiveness that
quickly exceeds hand colour. I am sort of against digital
colour as so many do it very badly and still believe it is
fantastic - very few seem to get this misconception
regarding their hand coloured works. Very fine, smooth
graduation, extremes of colour are all easy to render with
CG. Most of us have a PC and printer anyway, so no extra
desk space needs to be put aside. Also means a second copy
is easy to generate. Though I totally agree, there is
something extra nice and special about a hand coloured
original work.
Things like comic strips can be coloured up in flat tones
at a fraction of the time it would take to hand colour.
Since transmission to the printer is often digital anyway
(email, disc), it may as well be electronic to colour.
You can download (legally and free) a 'live Linux' CD with
Gimp on it. Knoppix is my current preference and drives
very similar to Windows XP. Live Linux means you can run
it from the CD - no need to install _anything_ on your
computer (though you can if you want to). The Plug & Play
is very good and the CD is usually jam-packed with useful
programs that do things in the same format as Office, CD
writers, MP3 players and the nice package (though in the
limit - ie, extreme use, not as good as Photoshop), GIMP.
Graphics Image Manipulation Program can do pretty much
every thing you want to do in graphic editing for free and
when you're finished, save your work to disk, restart the
system and back into Windows, or whatever.
> I can paint God dammit! Paaaaaint!
Ah, you too have discovered how much better paints (water
based - I'm avoiding oils - that's a whole new game!) are
than pencil? Pencil is not easy, for sure, but the
variation available in paint leaves them pretty much
behind. Have you tried coloured inks? Ink is the same
step above paint as paint is above pencil. But the price -
ouch! But the colour and graduations - oooooh yeah... Of
course, you can cross-medium (as JMH does) to get the
desired effects and levels.
> i should get to bed... I'm not quitting my day job any
> time soon, and I'd rather not get fired either.
Ya, know what you mean. :-/ I have a job interview
tomorrow, so I keep my claws crossed.... Pity it is still
another four weeks till I'm allowed to try walking. :-(
Hope this answers a few questions and gives some ideas. If
people have more questions, please ask - drawing techniques
is related to what Jim does, so I don't view it a problem
to discuss them here, since we can learn from each other's
experience. For specific pic problems, you can contact me
directly (ie, off group), but please be patient in that I'm
often delayed with replies - but I will always respond!
Scrapper, Black Dragon, though under doctor's orders to lie
down for 30 minutes every two hours, has found that lying
on one's front allows 30 minutes of sketching time every
two hours!
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Received on Wed Oct 05 2005 - 17:29:14 CDT