Comic Weekly Shop Thread - Let's Talk Brushes

[leecomics]

Calling all Tapas artists - new and experienced - to discuss tools of the trade, and tips and tricks to improve.

There's a lot of great information on how to improve our art -scattered across Youtube channels, artist profiles and DeviantArt pages - but I'm hoping to get a broader sense of what everyone's doing to create their own unique art.

Let's start off by discussing the basics - Brushes used.

1. What's your standard lineart brush?
2. Do you use anything special for backgrounds?
3. Do you use pen/pencil dynamics when doing lineart?

Please link to individual pages that show off your lineart / backgrounds instead of just your comic series!

[TheFalseVyper]

Hey, leecomics!

The brushes I use are the standard brushes Paint Tool SAI comes with.

1. For ALL of my line art, I use the Pencil tool. The density is set to 100 and the Min Size is at 0%, which I believe this is how the brush comes when you download SAI. The only thing I've altered would be the Stabilizer, which I have set to 15 to help my lines come out more smooth.

2. I would say that 95% of my backgrounds are all hand drawn with the basic tools SAI comes with. The other 5%, I switch to FireAlpacha (because I'm too cheap to get Clip Paint) for additional brushes that add sparkle or scatter effects that SAI can't do.

3. I'm not quite sure what you mean about "pen/pencil dynamics", but I pretty much only use the Pencil tool from SAI to do my line art.

Below is a panel from my comic that pretty much sums up all the different brushes I use. Pencil tool from SAI for the line art and the text, as well as additional brushes from FireAlpacha for the "dots and thorns" in the background.

Thank you for allowing me to share!

[leecomics]

Your page looks great!

I don't use Paint Tool SAI but your art definitely makes me interested in checking it out.
I think GIMP (the program I'm using) has options to reduce jitter in strokes but I typically don't use it as it slows down my sketch speed.

I haven't heard of FireAlpacha before, will look into it as well.

The "pen/pencil dynamics" may be specific to GIMP and probably Photoshop. Basically it gives you options to thicken/fade lines according to your stylus pressure, velocity etc.

-Lee

[TheFalseVyper]

I really love SAI, and from what I hear, most people use it for lining and coloring. However, there are a lot of drawbacks to using SAI for comics. For instance, there is no ruler or grid lines that help with making straight lines for panels.

I "cheat" this drawback and use the Selection tool to create boxes with it.

As for FireAlpacha, it's a free software that has some neat additional brushes that I like as well as a grid system that helps when I write out my text.

[scythe]

Here's what I use for my line art, with smoothing set to 20%.

And here are the results:

When I need to do some background shading or blending colours I use this bad boy, who comes with a lot of finesse.

Here's what that looks like:

[leecomics]

Dang. Awesome work.
My comic's currently in black and white, so I'm especially impressed with the first page's look.

Thanks for the info!

[Luminosophy]

I use Paint Tool SAI. :>

1) All my lineart is done in the default paint brush on pure black. While the pencil tool does have a natural ink like taper to it, I like to have a lot more control by "chiselling" away painted lines with the eraser. I just felt like this process feels more natural to me somehow. xD

2) Like this one I am working on currently, I just pretty much paint them all with the default paint brush tool. I start with the pencil tool though, to throw down all my colours in a sketchy format to get the lighting correct before I blend. I know there's brushes out there but whenever I have tried them sometimes it feels inorganic, or didn't match my style. I guess I like sitting down to do texture myself because it's relaxing. I'm not really tech savvy as well so idk if you can really get all the cool PSD brushes in SAI anyway. xD

3) I'm not sure what this means either. I have my stabilizer set at 2 (used to do it by hand traditionally, so I didn't like the setting too high) and just pretty much all default options.

....If anyone does have some cool brushes that work in SAI though, I'm all ears. I'd like to find some time savers that work for my style. xD

[quicksilverhg]

Hi there!

I do both of my webcomics in Adobe PS CS5.5 but Midnight Zone is the more unique one, in my opinion.

MZ has a set of weird style rules that define its ugly, MS paint-expressionist look.
(No anti-aliasing, no colors other than pure black or pure white, and no contours wider than 1 pixel. Teeth must be drawn individually, and skin wrinkles must be contoured.)

I use a 1-pixel pencil tool to contour elements within panels, and use a 1-pixel stroke for text bubbles and panel borders.

For backgrounds, I use a paint bucket fill tool for large areas, and hatch/scribble for mid values. My perspective lines and architectural drawing lines are a combination of guided and freehand, depending on the level of spatial disorientation I want the viewer to have. Here’s a page with some wide shots.

Midnight Zone :: Issue 1 (Light Sleeper), Page 11 of 22 | Tapas

(Here’s an image of where the link leads)

The pencil tool I use is pretty standard, with no pressure/tilt dynamics (unlike my other comic) and no correction. I don’t want the art to look too clean or smooth.

Again, this is an incredibly ugly art style and process, and I really wouldn’t recommend it unless that’s the look you want. Thanks for the opportunity to share, and happy improvement!

[quicksilverhg]

I love your line art! Silly question: do you have rotational sensitivity, or does your brush stay at a constant angle?

[Rhonder]

wowow I'm definitely giving that blending brush a try sometime ;O I've been on the search for some PS brushes for a while (although I really need to just learn how to make my own xD;; )

[leecomics]

Those woods are so dope. This art style definitely works for a horror comic.

1px is pretty small though. What resolution do you work in?

[leecomics]

Nice work @spudfuzz, I'm a fan of the lineart and your color palette is really pretty too.

Out of curiosity, how long does it take you to "chisel" away at your lines?

[Luminosophy]

Thank you! :>

Honestly not as long as you might think, once you get into a habit you just get faster at it as you go (learning how to control your lines better significantly cuts down on erasing time.) Longest ones can take a couple hours if they have details like super curly hair like above (less depending on if frames cut part out of it out.) But I don't think I really set out to be as fast as possible. xD

[Jenny-Toons]

I use SAI for both my inking, coloring, and a lot of my special effect. But when I want to add a little bit more "magic", I also add in some Photoshop effects as well.

1. My lineart brushes vary base on the type of comic I'm working on. For my horror comics, I use the Sketch pen and the Xamag Pen to add a bit of roughness to the work (and add to the mood as well). For my fantasy works, I use the Scribble Pen to add a bit of softness. And for my one Noir comic, I use the Ink pen for a bit of hardness. Here are some examples of those pens!

1. For backgrounds, I do a mixture of lineart and lineless painting-type styles. For this, I often use special effect pens you can find mostly on DA. Some examples are pens that create bark, leaves, and clouds. In terms of SAI, I also use the Multiply, Overlay, and Shade Opacity settings in order to add more layers and depth to my backgrounds. Here are some examples!
   

   
   
   
   

2. As for the dynamics, I don't always change the size or have thick and thin layers in my work. A lot of times, I use colors to show distance, size, and scaling. From my previous examples, A lot of my lineart is one-dimensional. It start out that way, as shown below (not really NSFW, but there is blood just in case):

Summary

However, by using the Opacity setting and different colors, I'm able to add layers to it!

I hope this helps a little bit!

[leecomics]

Thanks for the fast reply!
-Lee

[leecomics]

This helps quite a bit, thank you!
Your art is beautiful, for some reason I'm really drawn to the trees' shadows in your second (I guess 5th) image and the river you painted :0

Since your work isn't on Tapas yet I guess I need to wander over to DeviantArt now
-Lee

[dawgofdawgness]

I use Sai and do most of my lineart with uhh these settings:

I like using textured brushes like this one since it's much easier for me to sketch things without being a perfectionist. It gives my drawings sort of a grainy look but it can have a nice pencil feel to it too. It also gives them more personality in my opinion. ^_^

the only downside to using these kinds of brushes are when you use the bucket tool and it leaves some white spots in the lineart which you might not like.

If you're someone who constantly blocks in lineart/ adds hard shadows into your drawings, I would recommend a less textured brush if you don't want the white spots everywhere.
Also, though, if you tend to be a perfectionist with your lineart, I would try out some textured/grainy brushes to get out of the habit of making each line perfect. It makes you feel more like you're using actual pencil and paper

[feardeer]

I used to be one of many artists who swore by the hard round brush at varying opacity for everything I drew or painted, but nowadays I experiment with all sorts of brushes. I love browsing Clip Studio assets looking for neat additions to my artistic arsenal.

My recent favorite brush for line art and inking is, hands down, Perfect Pencil by user postdes on the Clip Studio asset store. It's free and it's great.

It may seem counter-intuitive to use a "pencil" to ink, but I just love the texture and versatility of it! I can use it for crisp lines, hazy lines, hatching, smooth shading, etc.

As far as settings go, I always use pressure sensitivity to control the width of my brush. The other important setting is stabilization, which I generally set pretty high unless I need to do some really fine details. I could never go back to working in an art program that does not have a stabilizer!

[scythe]

Not silly at all. No, these two brushes are locked in position. The ink pen pressure sensitive, so the thickness changes, while the blending brush changes its opacity. I really have to push to get it to put down a solid color.

If I need a thinner or thicker line while inking and the angle is perpendicular to the slant of the brush, I'll just rotate my canvas. I usually rotate my canvas anyway, so that my strokes move diagonally across the tablet, which I find gives me consistent, confidently drawn lines.

[scythe]

Youtube has everything you need to learn how to make brushes. Myself, I try to emulate a traditional inking technique, but some of the hacks people have come up with are incredible, with cross-hatching brushes for example.

I've bought brush suites over the years and used them plenty in making digital art, but when it comes to my comic work, I tend to stick to just a tried and trusted few.