I tend to love the feeling of creating my drawings in traditional media, mostly with Ink and Watercolor. I sometimes wonder if I could replicate them digitally and if that would make my work faster/more efficient.
Has anyone experienced a much better workflow switching from/to Digital medium? Is there a good combination that uses both (I actually leave all bubbles and text to add digitally)
Sep '20Sep '20
I switched to coloring digitally since half a year. The colouring has sped up quite a bit since I can easily make flat colours using the magic wand tool and selection tools in digital art programs.
I'm very slow in digital lineart though, which is why I do my lineart traditionally and scan it in.
I still prefer sketching traditionally because it gives me more degrees of freedom. Even if you manage to habituate yourself drawing with pen on paper is very different and gives more freedom of movement compared with drawing with finger on phone screen.
However, rendering digitally makes me achieve what is hard to do in traditional medium or make it easier to do. It also save time, space, no mess from paint and such, no drinking paint water, and more importantly money (no more buying expensive art supply!)
I tend to overwork areas I don't like which can be hard to clean up in traditional media (oil painting was fine because I could just paint over but my drawings always drew attention to the parts I liked the least). Going digital helps so much with that. The ease of adding ambiance or switching the colors is so convenient too.
That said before I added a "paper-feel" matte screen protector on my drawing device I hated the way it felt. Now it's awesome.
With my illustrative work I moved from digital to traditional to work faster. I spent too much time editing every time to be "perfect", but traditional art made me accept mistakes and move on.
Since comics would be edited, even a little, before posting... plus adding speech bubbles... I have a feeling I would end up spending more time on post than I'd like. 
BUT... it really just boils down to personal preference and what you think is worth it!
A few years ago I switched to digital only after doing traditional for years and I never looked back. That said, I've never had particularly steady hands and digital lets me zoom in as needed and quickly undo strokes that come out bad, so that makes a big difference for me in terms of efficiency. I also like being able to easily move things around like if I drew an eye or something slightly too low, I can quickly move it to the right position rather than having to redraw it entirely like I would with traditional. ^_^
No drinking paint water
Haha
Regarding cost, you still had to invest in a decent wacom tablet right? What about software?
That is not the point. My question was if you can get more efficient/faster by switching digital/traditional, regardless of preference
Yup! I still keep sketchbooks and I'll use those to jot down costume design ideas occasionally, and when I do life drawing practice I'll do that traditional. But the majority of my stuff I work 100% digital now.
oh, yeah i work waay better digitally than traditionally. its quicker, saves resources, dont need ink. can upload digital art straight to tapas instead of scanning it and such
As of now, I've gotten back to sketching comic layouts and panels traditionally. It's a bit faster for me to get ideas and layout down on paper. I do the rest (lineart, flatting, rendering, etc) digitally, but it helps to have those sketches side by side as opposed to on the exact canvas. Then, I'm able to see the layout as I put it and change it if I need to.
Though, I mostly do this for works I really want a certain vibe coming from? I like to sketch out the ideas first before being able to change them on canvas. And it works for me because I don't need to heavily ink over my sketches, so there's no real need for me to scan them other than me wanting an archive.
My work flow is faster, but I liked my traditional quality; my inks seemed really crisp. Right now, I've been working mostly digitally, but I do think once I get more room to do my "art space" the way I want then I'll start back working on some projects traditionally.
I do most my "proper" stuff digitally, it has major advantages like that undo button and layers and "why don't I have this colour I'm sure I had this colour" and "wft why is my pen running out now?!" and lots of other little cheats that can speed things up.
But, I still do a lot of doodle and screwing around and sometimes first designs traditionally. If I'm in a slump, sometimes I go back to traditional because there's something to be said for not having the undo button and all the little helping hands that sorta forces me to commit and own the mistakes work on them properly. And I still like to do things like Inktober traditionally of course.
I use a combination of both digital and traditional. For a long time, I tried to force myself to draw exclusively in digital, in part because I had no idea how to properly scan my traditional art (so it ended up looking like crap on screen) and in part because it was "what all popular artists do". However, despite all my attempts, I could never get myself to draw directly in digital, so I'd usually sketch things on paper and then do the lineart/coloring digitally. Still, I found myself spending AGES zooming in and trying to define all the tiny details, thus wasting a lot of time, more often than not ending up with something I didn't like anyway. This was especially true for cartoony drawings, which I could never seem to get to look the way I wanted them to no matter how many times I tried.
Then I finally managed to find a way to "scan" my traditional drawings without losing too much details (the trick apparently was taking photos, rather than using an actual scanner) aaaaand... decided to switch back to traditional, lol. I'm WAY faster with it (seriously, the coloring of a page with markers takes me... what, two hours, compared to the 4+ hours I spend on Photoshop?), I spend a lot less time nitpicking over all the tiny details AND I can get the result I want much more easily. Yes, it costs more, yes it's harder to store stuff... but honestly, it's a price I'm willing to pay, if it means being able to work faster and with results I don't hate.
I haven't given up completely on digital art: I still do it from time to time and now that I got myself a Cintiq and an iPad Pro I find myself enjoying the process a lot more than I used to (up until last year, my only tablet was a simple Wacom Manga with no screen). But yep, unless some sort of miracle happens and I stop being a freaking perfectionist at some point in the future, for my comic I'm going to stick to traditional art 
I am strictly traditional.
A lot of people use digital nowadays, and I've tried digital too. At first, I liked digital, but the problem with it is I became more perfectionistic when I worked with digital, getting the color palette and anatomy perfect. Digital doesn't feel right to me.
The pen is already a part of my soul, and an extension of my brain, so to throw it all away is like tearing out a part of my body.
When I draw with my pens and pencils, I feel a spiritual connection. That feeling is lost with a stylus and tablet. It feels artificial and my mind is numbed.
Yes, traditional takes a long time. But the results are worth it. Yes, you make mistakes. But those mistakes can become beautiful.
Plus, with everyone doing digital, digital loses its credit. You cannot touch or add texture in digital. You cannot experiment that much.
I am always experimenting with traditional. Every page is a new lesson. I ask myself "Have I tried collage yet?" "How about monochromatic?" If not, I try it. I like to try everything and add everything I can get my hands on. A candy wrapper glued into the pages? Let's try that!
That's why I will stay with my pen and watercolors forever. I am happy with these tools, and I don't need anything else.
Conclusion: traditional art takes a long time, but the results are amazing.
No because I draw on my smartphone and use a free application 
Many people especially younger ones are doing this, even though it is labelled as inferior and unprofessional by some people. I am no professional in any way so I don't care, they better buy us cintiqs if they really care.
I am too broke for wacom currently, would rather buy something else or save that money.
I used to draw traditionally before going digital. I now plan things out traditionally because it's faster and fun. I then do the final parts digitally because of its flexibility. With that said, I always make sure that my brushes are able to mimic my favorite traditional tools such as pencil and watercolor. In the end, they are both great mediums.
Figure out which you like. I realize that I hate coloring digitally. I've learned to like what I do, but I recognize that my digital coloring skills are very different and simplified compared to my traditional stuff. My digitally I can get better anatomy. My plan is to draw lines digitally, print them out, and use a lightbox to trace them, and then color traditionally. Haven't been able to do that much yet except for one older attempt where I traced just off my laptop screen lol
Tracing screen and trying to color akin to digitally with traditional means:: not good https://www.deviantart.com/watashiveracasan/art/chibi-Will-yellow-4287809451
Traditional art being "redrawn over" for blocking from traditional to digital:: https://shimonstar.tumblr.com/post/167756654489/doodle-at-work-of-will-and-his-cat-fabio traditional, https://shimonstar.tumblr.com/post/167756693049/cant-figure-out-what-to-do-with-the-eye-balls-xx1 digital
And when I say my traditonal coloring is better. I mean it.
Overall the process of doing something traditional and then re-tracing it's lines or something for colorblocking digitally takes like 5x longer and a 1million times more patience for me. It just feels soooo tedious.
