Digital or old fashioned pen and ink for making comics?

[NagashiKhan]

That's very true, a good way to ensure time away from the screen.

[UltHamBro]

I'm not really good at inking, so my pages are entirely digital. However, I'm trying to play a bit with my scanner: if I can get a good result I might try inking a few pages.

[igneriss]

...not to mention that drawing digitally is much more time-consuming for me CX //still need a lot of practice~

[Laredcarpette]

Ink, ink, ink. I'm very fast at inking so it is much easier for me. I recently bought a pentel brush and stopped inking with a classical brush, it was taking to much time and was sometime very random.
I digitalized my hand-writing in order to translate my comic.

[gateofselidor]

I pencil my pages traditionally, everything else is digital. I cel-shade my comic, so it's important for me that the final product looks as clean and neat as possible, and even at a high resolution traditional inks just don't look as good to me with digital cel-shading. It really enjoy drawing directly onto paper though, so I prefer to pencil onto actual paper.

[NPC]

I used to really be committed to traditional, but when I was in high school I fell in love with digital art. All the flexibility of traditional, without having to burn nearly as many resources.

[NagashiKhan]

You do a good job though! I'm just a lazy artist, so I don't spend so much time making it look good- I stick mostly with what I have. In this way, it may seem a little rushed. This is just my impatience with art. You, I can see, take your time and it turns out very well =3

[Menbung]

I work traditionally, scratching that paper with pen and ink, only screentones and occasional color are added digitally Oo.oO . Regards

[mjmassey]

I pencil, ink, and paint in black hair all by hand. Then I scan it in to do clean ups, grey tones and effects, text and speech bubbles. I use a combination between Photoshop and Illustrator. I could never get used to a tablet, it it seems to take me much longer to draw digital. Plus, to get all the tiny architecture details, it's way easier for me to do it on paper.

[Viro_Veteruscy]

I draw mine with a pen first before going digital. I can do them traditionally, but I haven't for a while now X3

[zeravlam]

I use a Cintiq too and now I'm drawing with Clip Studio Paint. And it's amazing.

[Ayumi]

I totally agree with you. I do my pages with pencil, then ink it by pen. (Recently I prefer Faber-Castell's 0.1) After I scanned them, I use Photoshop, and now I started to use Manga Studio. I just can't imagine to do everything digital. It seems kinda longer, plus once I tried a digital pen (whatever it calls, I don't know XD), and I felt it so... uncomfortable.

[UltHamBro]

When I first tried drawing on a tablet, it felt uncomfortable, but you end up getting used to it.
Could you please tell me the settings you use when scanning, or if you apply certain specific effects to the scanned version? I've tried scanning a few inked drawings, and the lines look like trash. I've also recently tried the method seen in this page, and while the results are kind of decent, I can't help but think that there is a much better way.

[Ayumi]

Well, I just wanna buy an own scenner in these days (I moved from my parents, and it's kinda annoying to go there always for scanning XD)... I usually just scan in 300 or 600dpi, so I can't say anything special about the scanning settings but I always edit my pages after it in Photoshop. You can clear it and make the dark tones more effective with going to Image/Adjusment/Levels with moving the sliders on the left and right side, you'll see the difference (make sure, to switch on preview). Or you can try at Image/Adjustment/Brightness,Contrast. Hmm... I hope I could help ^^; But if someone has a better tip, I would be curious too. And btw. Does anybody know a good way to scan pencil colored images? Those are always look horrible when I scan them o.O

[anon13984047]

I sketch my thumbs with a pencil and draw the final pages with a pencil as well. Whenever I start tracing a sketch I lose most of its essence. When I draw directly there's more fluidity and spontaneity. More mistakes, too, but those can be erased. Also, some mistakes are pretty interesting to look at. My art made a huge leap forward after killing off most of my die-hard perfectionism. Highly recommended. <3

After drawing, I scan the pages. The paper I work with has a slight sepia tone which gives each page a nice tint instead of cold black-and-white. All my coloring is done in PhotoShop, with a trusty tablet.

For many pages I use photographs for textures and even as entire pages. There's lots of interesting textures all around you that can be captures easily. Especially good when you're waiting for a bus or friend anyway and need to kill the time!

[rollo75]

I would never make enough use of a drawing tablet to make it worth my effort and buying something like Photoshop or Manga Studio seems like an unnecessary expense when I'm only a hack.
Paper can be had for less than a cent a sheet and with pen and pencil, I can sit outside in the park and watch the ferries go by on one of the most gorgeous harbours in the world.

Pen and Ink - because I'm a numpty.

[mjmassey]

I think you're hardly a numpty. But I agree, as much as I think a graphics tablet would be awesome, I'd never make enough use of it. I'd probably get too frustrated trying to learn it and give up.

[NagashiKhan]

Legit, learning to use a Pen Tablet is not as hard as you my think. A pen tablet pretty much makes photoshop and mangastudio more useful by ten fold. But there are perks to using the pen as well, so I think a good balance can give you the best of both worlds

[flapjackstudios]

Both for me! I couldn't do without either!

[JigokuNeko]

Half and half. I pencil and ink by hand --and I really love inking by hand, it's really relaxing (I am a cheapskate gal of convenience and use sakura pens and gelpens, no brushes and inkbottles for this grumpy cat). Then I scan and screentone / color in PS because Ctrl-Z is my BFF.