Tee shirt designer heroes - rich

a question to people who hand ink

posted about 1 month ago by heroes

how do you get your work onto the pc and looking so neat

when i sketch thats just what it is rough with lots of rubbings out and corrections

is there any tricks do you trace your sketch then scan that in ect...

ps i hate using a tablet and pen

23 Comments

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  1. Tee shirt designer heroes - rich

    heroes said about 1 month ago

    ps i know this has probably crept up before but im hoping new people can help

  2. Tee shirt designer heythequickness - Jerome Villagracia

    heythequickness said about 1 month ago

    When I hand ink, I sketch lightly with a blue pencil, then ink it. After I'm done inking, I erase the pencil and scan the image. Then I bring the scanned image into photoshop and up the contrast and try to eliminate any unwanted grain and do some clean up. Afterwards, I just take the whole into into Cocoapotrace, depending on how I feel about it.

    I don't hand ink as much anymore, but I definitely want to get back into it... I just got myself a brand new set of Rapidographs!

  3. Tee shirt designer Terror - Ethan Melazzo

    Terror said about 1 month ago

    bump

    something thats troubled me for quite some time.

  4. Tee shirt designer heroes - rich

    heroes said about 1 month ago

    also would tracing paper work in a scanner?

    if i put a sheet of plain paper ontop

  5. Tee shirt designer Sonne - Sol Amstutz

    Sonne said about 1 month ago

    i do a pencil drawing, then i tape a piece of bristol over it and trace the inks with a lightbox so there are no eraser marks so the scan looks clean.

  6. Tee shirt designer quakerninja - Newman

    quakerninja said about 1 month ago

    I go straight to ink, no sissy pencils for me thank you or erasers and other helpful decrapifiers. (tracing is a great tool, use with caution)

    Yes traceing paper does scan, just have something white behind it, so the scanner thinks its real paper,normal typing paper works.

  7. Tee shirt designer thebutcher - thebutcher

    thebutcher said about 1 month ago

    we noticed

  8. Tee shirt designer dougie - Doug Hindson

    dougie said about 1 month ago

    I usually go straight to pen, but if i do use pencil i try and use a light colour (e.g. orange/blue) and then go over with pen and then rub out unwanted lines.

    After that I scan it in at a high res and put it in photoshop. I use the select colour range tool and then clean up the edge of the selection with the 'refine' button on the magic wand tool. After that I overlay a layer of black and then clean it up.

    I like this method when doing designs as it saves the time vectorising/tableting...

    (but i normally colour with a tablet)

  9. Tee shirt designer corefolio - CyBA

    corefolio said about 1 month ago

    pencil drawing, 00 brush and a Stabilo 'exam grade' eraser (it doesn't erase the inks).
    but I feel more comfortable with a freehand pencil sketch scanned and inked with Painter :]

  10. Tee shirt designer horsebites - HORSEBITES

    horsebites said about 1 month ago

    I draw the image with pencil. Then I go over it with Micron pens. After that I erase all the pencil marks so it is just the ink. The paper I use is Beinfang Graphics 360 Translucent Marker Paper. This way the ink dries right away and does not smudge when I use the eraser over it.
    Then I scan it into photoshop at 300dpi then I put a "Threshold" on it to make it crisp black and white. I save it as a TIFF and it's ready to either get "Live Traced" or what I do is bring it into Flash it traces it in there for me. Sweet.

  11. Tee shirt designer cajun metal - Josh Elowsky

    cajun metal said about 1 month ago

    Rough sketch. Ink said sketch with a brush or pen. Scan it at at least 300dpi and use curves and levels in your channels to clean it up if necessary.
    I don't use a blue pencil for my roughs but when you do it's not necessary to erase after inking. The reason people use blue pencils stems back to before computers when photocopies or photographs were made of the work. The blue of the pencil acts the same way a green screen works by not showing up. If you scan your blue roughs in they'll be really easy to remove. I got a chance to see some of Jaime Hernandez' (Love and Rockets) originals and he works/ed by inking over blue pencil roughs.
    As for tracing paper with a regular paper over it, I've had some iffy results. The grain of the tracing paper sometimes comes through in the scan and tracing paper doesn't hold ink that well and is easy to smear.

    I like using a brush sometimes though because it usually covers whatever thin linework my pencil lays down in the rough.

    All that being said and if you're going the no-tablet route I'd look into the methods cartoonists and comic book illustrators use. Check out info on Jack Kirby and Jaime Hernandez or Jim Phillips.

  12. Tee shirt designer heroes - rich

    heroes said about 1 month ago

    thanks :]

  13. Tee shirt designer derekdeal - Derek Deal

    derekdeal said about 1 month ago

    im going back to hand drawing, illustrator is an evil bitch

  14. Tee shirt designer wotto - wotto

    wotto said about 1 month ago

    ok some people may not like what i am about to say but drawing is the skill that is massively overlooked in design. Too many people drag images off the web and adapt them slightly then line draw them (trace) in photoshop. Thats ok for some design but I love the scratchy lines and slight flaws, thats what drawing is about. some designs are almost too slick and finished imo.

  15. Tee shirt designer heroes - rich

    heroes said about 1 month ago

    wotto said: ok some people may not like what i am about to say but drawing is the skill that is massively overlooked in design. Too many people drag images off the web and adapt them slightly then line draw them (trace) in photoshop. Thats ok for some design but I love the scratchy lines and slight flaws, thats what drawing is about. some designs are almost too slick and finished imo.

    i kind of agree i like to see the human aspect in things i just draw everything with a mouse and paint brush in photoshop and its so time consuming i sketch everything first though as i really cant draw straight onto pc

  16. Tee shirt designer Truman325i - Andy Meyer

    Truman325i said about 1 month ago

    thomcat said: we noticed

    haha

  17. Tee shirt designer image620 - David Medrano

    image620 said about 1 month ago

    wotto said: ok some people may not like what i am about to say but drawing is the skill that is massively overlooked in design. Too many people drag images off the web and adapt them slightly then line draw them (trace) in photoshop. Thats ok for some design but I love the scratchy lines and slight flaws, thats what drawing is about. some designs are almost too slick and finished imo.
    ^ agreed

    There are a couple ways I go about transferring my art to digital.

    First= I rough sketch in a non-photo blue pencil. (Non-photo should not show up in your scan at all.)

    Second= I trace over the non-photo blue with a lead pencil as precisely as possible. (depending on the finish I'm going for)

    Third= Ink, or just scan the penciled art. If need be set file to gray scale, and adjust contrast and brightness in photoshop.

    Sometimes I hand ink, sometimes I trace with custom brushes in Illustrator. Like I said, it all depends on the finish I'm going for (grungy or Clean)

    Here is a nice tutorial on Coloring your art

  18. Tee shirt designer Ben Danger - Ben Banks

    Ben Danger said about 1 month ago

    horsebites said: I draw the image with pencil. Then I go over it with Micron pens. After that I erase all the pencil marks so it is just the ink. The paper I use is Beinfang Graphics 360 Translucent Marker Paper. This way the ink dries right away and does not smudge when I use the eraser over it. Then I scan it into photoshop at 300dpi then I put a "Threshold" on it to make it crisp black and white. I save it as a TIFF and it's ready to either get "Live Traced" or what I do is bring it into Flash it traces it in there for me. Sweet.

    Why not jpeg? In what scenerios would you use a tiff over a jpeg? Would you ever use BMPs for anything? This is one of those things I should know but never bothered to figure out. I generally use jpegs for anything I do with anything raster.

  19. Tee shirt designer edgillustrator - edgil

    edgillustrator said about 1 month ago

    honestly, i just just paper that my mum buys which is jsut normal paper, i use pencil to do the basic sketch then outline it with pen, rub out the pencil and scan and change the brightness and contrast, then race it on illustrator, nothing fancy or anything :]

  20. Tee shirt designer heroes - rich

    heroes said about 1 month ago

    edgillustrator said: honestly, i just just paper that my mum buys which is jsut normal paper, i use pencil to do the basic sketch then outline it with pen, rub out the pencil and scan and change the brightness and contrast, then race it on illustrator, nothing fancy or anything :]

    thats what i do but sometimes i lose the feeling of the sketch once its on the pc which really angers me ahha

  21. Tee shirt designer discordantart - Chad Lenjer

    discordantart said about 1 month ago

    quick sketch with graphic pencil, preferably a harder one such as H. microns, and assorted pens on bristol, kneaded eraser to remove the pencils, since it isn't too harsh on the ink, normal erasers tend to make the lines shitty.

    scan in hiiiigh res, b&c, slight blur, thresholding. etc. really just try and make them look as crisp in person. but not fake.

  22. Tee shirt designer heroes - rich

    heroes said about 1 month ago

    awesome thanks everyone :] ( see we can do a sensible post civily)

    now i just gotta learn how to draw

  23. Tee shirt designer AndrewOliv - Andrew

    AndrewOliv said about 1 month ago

    use some super heavy ink.

    even if I trace in an outline with a ink pen, I find it doesnt scan well enough and use a a layer of INDIA INK!!

    all my designs use india ink and it works super good. all I gotta do do some selective coloring and get rid of scanning residue then im good to go.

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