Can I use AI to enhance my own original artwork?

[JWZagst]

I just don't think I'll ever be comfortable drawing with the screenless tablet, and every time I try I just get annoyed at how difficult it is for my brain to pair drawing on with tablet with what's appearing on my monitor. It's not fun. Plus in the time it would take me to come anywhere close to being good with it, I will have already saved up enough money for the Kamvas, so ultimately it would be a waste of time. The reason I was considering using AI to enhance my drawings is so that I could start work on my webcomic right away. But if I were to wait in order to spend weeks or months learning to properly draw with a screenless pen tablet, then that would be no different than the time I'd spend waiting to buy the Kamvas. Basically I was looking at two options: Find a way to work on my webcomic right now without any delay and have the first few completed pages within a couple weeks, or wait until I can buy the Kamvas and then do the webcomic. Based on the feedback, using AI to enhance my work so that I can get the webcomic up sooner is a bad idea, and so I will wait until I have the Kamvas to do the webcomic. Thank you again to everyone who took the time to give their feedback, I really appreciate it.

[moontokkym]

As someone who worked on screenless tablets for 6 years including at art school... Having a pen display isn't going to magically make your art better, and you can learn on a screenless tablet just fine.

The skills you need to improve are going to have to be worked on regardless of your tools, and using AI now is just going to slow your progress. I worry you'll spend a bunch of money on a pen display thinking it'll help and then get demotivated when you realise that you have the exact same problems as before, just you also have neck pain from looking down instead of ahead at the screen.

I get that for some people adjusting to not watching your hands is hard, but 99% of people do eventually get used to it (sometimes making your cursor bigger or more visible on screen on your drawing program of choice can help, i know I need it even on pen displays). It's like touch typing or dancing, eventually you get a feel of where things are and the movement you need to do.

Again I say this as someone who was on Intuos pro, is now on Kamvas (which I got for the colour grading because my laptop physically can't display reds and blacks correctly). The swich from one to the other did absolutely nothing for my general results, just allowed me to not have weird black and red balance.

[Humbug]

When the Cintiq first came out it was one of the earliest display drawing tablets. Being a student at the time I wasn't able to afford it. I always thought how awesome it would be to use it for drawing.

I finally got to test one at a workplace some years later and I ended up... totally hating it. It felt nothing like drawing traditionally and I had already been training on my tiny Wacom for a few years that I was much more efficient on it anyway.

If you truly think a display will help you let no one stop you I guess. But sometimes all someone needs is just the right mindset and a lot of practice.

[wolflu66]

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[wolflu66]

I suspect you might not have properly installed the drawing tablet's driver?

If it doesn't have the driver properly installed, then it's just a "pen-shaped mouse."
The difference between a mouse and a digital tablet is that every point on the digital tablet corresponds to a point on the screen - it's absolute positioning. While a mouse controls a cursor with relative positioning.

Although modern operating systems should be able to use most drawing tablets normally, given that you say you still can't get used to it, I can only start by trying to clarify whether it's a driver issue.

[vapidink]

If you're set on getting a display tablet, you can get one for a lot cheaper if you buy from ebay. Huion has a page where they sell refurbished products that are pretty good quality.

That being said, I really think you just need to practice a lot more with the tablet you do have. Hand eye coordination is different for everyone, so it's okay if you're having trouble getting the hang of it, you just have to get some practice. Try drawing simple shapes to get a feel for it.

Personally, I started out using a track pad ages ago, then I got a Huion HS64 some years back. It's a pen tablet and it took some getting used to, but all my covers and art until recently were done with it. A couple months ago I got a Kamvas pro 13 and there wasn't much of a change. My lines are more precise and truer to what I draw with pen and paper, but the biggest change--and the main reason I bothered to upgrade--is that I can draw faster. As far as skills, you probably won't see too big a change than if you were to just practice with the pen tablet.

If you want to wait and save though, you could at least keep working on your comic and sketching out pages so you have something to work with when you have your display tablet. It'll make it faster for you to build up a backlog then. Either way, I'm glad you're not going with AI. It's really not worth it for the trouble it might give you later on.

[JWZagst]

Oh definitely, I'm not expecting the display to make my art better, but to make it easier to draw. My brain is having difficulty drawing on one surface while the lines appear on a different surface, and after a few weeks of already trying, it hasn't gotten any easier. By the time I would become proficient in it, I'd have already purchased the Kamvas 16. I've already watched multiple guides on YouTube about how to get used to a screenless pen tablet, I've tried and tried again, but it's just not for me. I want the Kamvas 16 because I want to draw on the same surface that my linework appears on.

[JWZagst]

I think the drivers are installed correctly and the pen tablet is working properly - the problem is me XD.

[JWZagst]

Thanks! I'm hoping to get the Kamvas 16 by the end of Summer, maybe sooner if I can get it on sale.

[jwabeasley]

I suspected you might say that.

Somehow they always do! It keeps happening. People need to stop making excuses for themselves and let themselves do the work.

@JWZagst in the quest to get your art skills up to a level where you are happy with the results, you will develop so much. In your taste and your style, in the way you think about images, in the way you see the people and objects around you, the way you see the light reflecting on objects. Every time you use AI to do the necessary practice for you, you rob yourself of this development.

Every artist has 10k bad drawings in them to do before they can make anything good. There is no solution other than drawing them out.

You can buy watercolor pencils at any decent art store. If you drew this same picture with watercolor pencils, then used a brush and some water on it, it would even out those colors for you without the need for AI. I did it in my sketchbook here:

They could be flatter if I wanted.

A good artist can get great results even with substandard tools. You need to develop these art fundamentals and there's no getting around that.

[wolflu66]

If we can rule out hardware or software issues with the drawing tablet itself, then I suggest you still spend more time getting used to it and mastering it. While it's true that it's not as intuitive as a screen tablet, it still has its advantages - it's cheaper and more eye-friendly.

Wacom's Intuos series has been the standard equipment for digital illustrators in the industry for nearly 30 years. If you can't control it well, I'm afraid you'll still struggle to control a screen tablet properly even after getting one.

As someone mentioned earlier, if you can use a computer without looking at your hand holding the mouse, then you can definitely draw while looking at the screen without looking at the drawing tablet.

Good luck, and I hope everything goes smoothly for you.

[newcomer2003]

Bro just do as you wish overall over goal to entertain people.

[JWZagst]

Well, using AI to enhance my drawing was just one time, for the image I posted in the initial post. I commented here and was going to wait for feedback before using AI on any other images. And after hearing the feedback, I've determined using AI is a bad idea. But I want my webcomic to have a digital art look because it's going to be very action heavy with lots of magical effects and such. It's heavily inspired by One Piece, DBZ, Naruto, MHA, as well as Critical Role. To give you an idea, here's an anime-like opening sequence I did with the Sims 4 showing off some ideas for the designs of my characters:

To make it look the way I see in my head, I want to give it a digital art look. But using the drawing tablet without a screen is not fun and I do not enjoy it. That's why I decided to wait until I have Kamvas 16.

[JWZagst]

Drawing directly on a screen is way easier to me than drawing on a separate surface from the screen. I just now downloaded a drawing app on my phone to mess around with the touchscreen, and while this was something I just drew up in like 20 seconds, it was way easier to control than my Intuos. Obviously, this isn't meant to be solid art, it was just a test to see how it felt to draw lines on a touchscreen with my finger. Once I have the Kamvas with a pen directly on a screen, I am confident I will have more fun than trying to draw with the Intuos.

[Oriflamme]

Question: do you do a rough sketch before jumping into doing the lineart?

I was looking at the screenshot you’ve posted and I didn’t see any sketching/rough layer so I was curious.

If not, then it’s the easiest change you could do to improve your art. It goes beyond medium paper, tablet, mouse or phone.

[JWZagst]

Which screenshot? If you mean the ones with CSP, I was using a background layer with figures from JustSketchMe to help guide me. When I draw on paper, I do it in pencil first, then do the lineart with ink, and then colors. Like, here is an older version of my initial hand-drawn image where I tried out giving Kai Hexum round ears and a different nose and jaw line. I kept erasing and changing it until I was happy, and then inked it. And sometimes I just draw straight without framing, I'll post some of those too.

[JWZagst]

If you mean the screenshot of my phone, I just drew that up in like 20 seconds with no framing or guide or anything. I decided to take a few extra seconds and do a slower one in that same app on my phone. Of course, my big fat fingers made it slightly difficult, but using a pen on the Kamvas will solve that particular issue XD. As with the other one, I did not use any framing or rough sketch, I just did it from memory. Not meant to be solid art, just another test for using the touchscreen to draw, but taking a few extra seconds and going a bit slower.

[Kelheor]

The non-screen tablet definitely has a pretty big learning curve, and depending on how good the tablet itself is, sometimes it is really hard to use it. I struggled with my first non-screen tablet so much I decided it's not for me. Granted, it was more than 10 years ago and even at this point the tablet was already old, so technology became so much better since then. I didn't have much problem with all my non-screen Wacom tablets after that, but then I switched to Cintiq and every time I need to use Intuos, it's a pain.
So yeah, I'd say using a screen tablet is definitely much easier, so I am not sure why people are trying to say it's not is it the same as using a pencil? No, not really. But it's definitely much closer to using a pencil.
If you already have a tablet I would still recommend trying to get used to it, but if it's really hard and it's a pain to use after a few weeks of trying, no harm in waiting for a screen one.

[Oriflamme]

Your sketches on paper are too dark and you’re pressing too hard on the paper. I recommend drawing lightly with a 2H pencil so you can easily erase the lines without leaving a mark.

The justsketchme thing is not a rough/sketch layer, It’s an anatomy and pose reference. You need to do another layer in between those two. The sketch layer is where you make all of your mistakes and then correct them, You don’t need to add every detail, nor does every line have to be perfect, You just need enough information to guide your final line.

For example:

Sketch:

Lineart:

Please note that in the example, the sketch was done over a screenshot of a 3d model. It is also a little bit cleaner than usual due to some quirk of the production methods.

Edit: Forgot to include the original sketch, to avoid making you think that “real” artist can draw something like as a first step.

[JWZagst]

The Wacom Intuos is top tier as a pen tablet, the issue is that I am not good at using it to draw XD. People have said it's the same as using a mouse, but for me it's quite different because pointing and clicking with a mouse is not the same as trying to draw anime-style images. Trying to draw anime faces without looking at the surface I am drawing on is so difficult for me and takes the fun out of art. Most of my experience is on paper and back when I was a teenager, I could draw Goku almost as well as Akira Toriyama himself, but then I switched my focus to writing and my art suffered over the years. I've only recently decided to get back into art seriously again, still rekindling those old flames XD.