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wr4ith0
Nov '14
1

Continuing the discussion from Content Marketing Guide for Comickers4:

Ah, ok well on the drawing front: Drawing on a tablet is actually quite impressive (I'm going to assume you have access to a computer as well though, correct me if i'm wrong). Here's a couple low cost options that might give you a leg up:

GIMP 2.0(the GNU free image editor) is a free, open source clone of photoshop that quite a few people use successfully. It's got a pretty solid tool. The main difference seems to be the lack of some drawing tablet pressure support and some of the more sophisticated selection algorithms.

Paint tool sai is the program i actually drew the teddy roosevelt comic in (thanks ^_^). It costs about 60 dollars depending on the strength of japanese currency at the moment. It's got some algorithms for smoothing out inked lines and it's really lightweight (unfortunately it only runs well on windows...). Go here for a 30 day trial and see what you think of it http://www.systemax.jp/en/sai/2

And if you're tired of drawing with a mouse, monoprice is supposed to make a solid digital tablet1 for 50$. A tablet is really the way to go if you're serious about digital art. And monoprice is probaby the best way to get one on the cheap.

I'll send along some general art tutorials and maybe some sai specific stuff when I have time.

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kialankay
Nov '14

Thank you for the great recommendations! GIMP looks like a really good option right now, although I am a bit wary of doing art on my computer, which is a fairly elderly MacBook that crashes regularly and has to be restarted every few days (so it sounds like Sai would't run that well on it, which is disappointing...). I'll definitely also keep that tablet link bookmarked!

(I'm so, so sorry it took me so long to reply -- I left town over part of Thanksgiving break and forgot to bring my iPad.)

cyanste
Nov '14

For PC: Photoshop's price shouldn't be scary anymore, as it's upgraded into something called Creative Cloud. I have a membership for $30 that gets me access to all Creative Cloud programs, and Photoshop with Lightroom is $10/month.

Manga Studio/Clip Studio is honestly my favorite, and at $50 (period) it's a great price.

Tablet wise, if you want something super reliable, you could start with the Wacom Bamboo. It's around $100 if you're willing to plunk it and worth it to get started.

For iPad: have you tried Sketchbook by Autodesk? That seems to be more oriented towards lineart, but then again that's the only thing I can do. It's pretty good for it.

wr4ith0
Nov '14

There's also the option of going for more of a traditional setup. You can scan it or use a decent camera (think above four megapixels, plenty of lighting) then clean and color correct the image in a program like GIMP (there are at least a couple pertinent guides below). The watercolor in A Redtail's Dream and many of the pages of Holy hand grenade's highly entertaining series Mokepon are traditional art that's been scanned onto a computer.

Otherwise you can consider lightweight options like deviantart's muro in browser drawing app (with a nice autosave function), or look for other browser based solutions.

Here's some general art tutorials (relevant stuff from what I have squirreled away). Take everything with a grain of salt, an artist can only tell you what works best for them. Still, these guys know their stuff:

http://www.questionablecontent.net/tutorial.php2 here's how the guy from questionable content does his stuff. It's a solid intro on how he does cell shading (take or leave the bpelt plugin).

http://mikeinel.deviantart.com/art/Anime-soft-shading-tutorial-93742741?q=gallery%3Amikeinel%2F2527364&qo=1142 this guy's insane. Check out his coloring process. You might not end up using it, but you will learn something.

http://elsevilla.deviantart.com/journal/Get-my-Painters-brushes-2311585831 elsevilla has something important to say if you were wondering about digital brush settings in your art program of choice.

http://www.minnasundberg.fi/water_tutorial.htm4 minna sundberg: teaching you how to draw some waters

http://www.redmoonrising.org/extras/tutorials/1 useful tutorials on all parts of creating a webcomic from the author of red moon rising

http://endling.deviantart.com/art/Body-Language-Meme-Envy-301137193 A short note on body language and a great many examples

http://www.livestream.com/Mikeinel mike inel's livestream, lots of filmed art making by one of the brilliant artists behind katawa shoujo (sometimes NSFW)

http://www.fantasio.info/2012/04/android-legacy-look-walkthrough.html1 a really neat piece for photorealistic painting on top of photo images (sorta NSFW)

http://emptyeasel.com/2007/01/19/how-to-photograph-your-artwork-for-a-portfolio-or-the-internet/1 a guide on art photography. Or scanning images with a camera.

http://annadittmann.tumblr.com/post/59321683198/gold-a-color-walk-through-someone-asked-me1 Guide on reworking a color scheme (photoshop, but applicable anywhere). Try different layers and settings for unification and mood changes.

Vector Stuff

http://mariowibisono.deviantart.com/art/MVP-Tutorial-Chapter-1-470165822 short intro to vector shading

http://photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/pen/pen.htm2 photoshop pen tutorial. Learn to use it. This is a very powerful tool. (this is "vectors" in photoshop).

http://www.tutorial9.net/tutorials/photoshop-tutorials/pen-tool-basics-in-photoshop/ another photoshop pen tool guide. seriously this thing is useful. (look up pen tool specific to your program of choice)

http://inkscapetutorials.org/ inkscape is an open source adobe illustrator (vector art) alternative. Can't say i've had all that much success with it, but i tried it without training then picked up a copy of illustrator for classwork so I might not have given it a fair shake.

Somewhat Photoshop specific (applies to other programs, just often under different labels)

http://www.lunacore.com/photoshop/tutorials/tut003.htm layer masks in photoshop. very useful.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/photoshop-curves.htm color correcting tools in photoshop, also very useful

kialankay
Dec '14

@wr4ith0: Wow, thank you for all the great tutorials! I've decided that a more traditional setup for the lineart, then cleanup and coloring digitally, would suit me well. (The tutorial on photographing my work will definitely be a much-used resource in coming weeks.) I also started trying out GIMP, and so far it looks great -- it'll be good for cleanup, and I might try using it to ease into digital art later. Thanks for pointing it out to me!

@cyanste: I'll definitely try Sketchbook as well sometime, since I'm perpetually unhappy with my lineart. Thanks for the tip!