Raster or Vector?

[SoftWonderBun]

I know the 'smart' choice is vector but what do you actually use?

[BlairFujin]

I mean, depends on what you want to use them for... xD Logo - you're definitely better off with vectors, painting? not so much. Personally, I just use vector layers in csp for linearts, because vector eraser can really speed up cleaning up lines and I'm a very big fan of "fill up to vector path" option in fill tool, but everything else, I just use good old raster layers

[SoftWonderBun]

I'm a ride or die raster scrub so I'm curious if others give it more thought than I do. Logos I'm usually using some sort of font, I guess those are vector or vector adjacent?

[BoomerZ]

Vector is great for what it's for, logo or stuff you need to resize and not lose information. Rastor is better for actually drawing with line weight and blending of colors. For comics I would say rastor is superior in the techniques needed to create one.

[VibrantFox]

i had to use vector for graphic design stuff when that was a thing i did but for literally everything else i've been exclusively working with raster

[candiedcotton]

I hate vectors outside of things like logo design and simple work.

For comics? Not remotely enough control of the work to be of value. Unless I guess really really simple comic art like... er, Snoopy or something.

[darthmongoose]

I made my logo as a vector so I could easily scale it for merch and things... but I can't imagine the faff of making all my pages as vectors.

I've done work as vectors before, like the Serverless Days mascots...

Where the new ones had to fit in with the existing one eyed cat, and also be made into pin badges and stuff. It took me weeks to make all these, painstakingly putting down each line and area of shadow... I love them, but... AGGHH.

The other way is to auto trace, which I tried on the shiny gold design for covers of these Adventuring journals I sell with my partner:

It mostly traced it okay, but I had to go in and painstakingly fix a lot of small details, even having drawn it quite large.

Basically, I can't imagine making a vector comic using either technique and keeping to a decent schedule. It'd be very annoying, and I think my raster work looked pretty good in print, and it definitely looks fine scaled down to 940px, at which point it's probably impossible to tell the difference.

[DarkSena]

Nooooooooo, I've always hated Vectors ever since we were forced to used them at school. I know those a super helpful as they don't loose any quality while scaling but outside flat graphic work you cannot really use them... Raster and bitmap it is. I prefer scanning with a high resolution so you have a decent quality and while drawing digitally having high resolution and big enough file enough not to overkill your memory but good enough to make good quality print.

[SoftWonderBun]

Love that almost everyone is like 'logos and that's it'! I had the same experience @DarkSena with using them in school for graphic design class...with a mouse...It was a thing that's for sure...

I was just so curious from being on YT and seeing some webtoon creators use it to ink pages and I was like??? How big are your files? My computer would explode before I even finished a chapter lol

[rajillustration]

Yeah if I start with a vector I'm usually rasterizing it at some point just because of the file size. Vectors are cool and all, but CSP makes em chug if it's too complicated. I love using vectors for backgrounds though, because then I can easily erase overlapping lines and throw together a room in perspective quite quickly.

[BlairFujin]

Were they going into a separate vector focused software or just using "vector layer" in their regular program like me? Because those don't really act as if you switched to adobe illustrator on inkscape - you draw the same way you would on a raster layer, but if you select a line as an object, you'll see there are points in them you can move around and looking at my own files, using them doesn't really impact the file size. My computer dislikes me more if I play too much with correction layers... xD

[SoftWonderBun]

Ngl, I don't have a clue as it wasn't a tutorial. It was more a vlog style video. I just noticed them yanking and adjusting the actual lines like with a vector drawing and it got me thinking about who else does that cause I personally wouldn't make a comic that way.

[BlairFujin]

So my guess is they were talking about vector layer in a raster based program, so, believe me, it is way less painful than going full vector and helps speed some stuff up (when linerating; sketching, flats and shading - vector layers don't really work for that, heck, you can't even use fill tool on them :P)

[SoftWonderBun]

Ah okie that's super interesting!

[darthmongoose]

I do know of some people who vector ink their comics. Some people are actually faster at it than drawing by hand! ...definitely not me though!

[SoftWonderBun]

Yeah I suffered through that one highschool class and may did one??? other picture on my own at the very beginning of learning to draw/digital art and I was like 'mmm no thank...' from there on out.

[Iris-Grimoire]

I use raster for most things, vector for logos and symbols that I might want to reuse in ways other than copy and paste. I like working with vector, but it follows some weird rules that get in the way of muscle memory, and it's a bit intensive on large files.

[Cavechan]

My day job requires vectors so I work with them almost every day. I actually use a mouse 99.9% of the time too (my work has a screen tablet but it's pretty heavy and annoying to move around). I work in screenprint and you don't HAVE to have a vector to make the files for the screens but it is definitely more complicated to do it as a raster most of the time.

Logos absolutely must be done in vector format. In fact, if you were to give me your logo in raster format, I will cry because then I have to vectorize it. I guess that means I cry every day at work. lol

For comics however, I work completely differently. I don't use a mouse at all and I do most of my line art as raster lines but I do my backgrounds and maybe some other things using vectors. Unfortunately, CSP is very limited in its vector capabilities but they are very powerful for what us comic artists can use them for. I absolutely could not use CSP for my day job.

I actually made a short 3-part video tutorial on how to make them for anyone interested in learning more. Here is the first video:

[SynergyEclipse]

I use both.

Vectors: I extensively use a vector program for most of my webtoon; making detailed, full color illustrations is doable with vectors, though I had to go through a learning curve before I could get somewhat efficient with them.

Through enough practice I developed a work flow. Vectors are great at some things such as how they can put color and line art at the same time, and they make it a lot easier to revamp earlier panels, but there are other things that raster is better at.

Raster: Many of my drawings usually for art challenges are drawn in raster. I like the feel of painting that I can’t get when making something with vectors. I export my episodes to blend backgrounds and paint in the finishing touches such as texture effects that’d be far more tedious to do with vectors.

[system]

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