artist at work

[egypturnash]

I spent a lot of time on the weekend re-inking that picture of Revar, because I hated those first-working-pen-I-could-find inks, and trying to tone it in Photoshop. It'll be quicker this way, I thought. Some flood fills and some line colors and it'll be done.

I was wrong. It took for fucking ever and I was really unhappy with the results; I was spending more time fighting the program than actually getting things to work.


After most of a day of cursing I had this.

It sat there staring at me all Sunday. Late in the evening, rainwing offered some encouragement on my PS methodology, and a few suggestions for how to do the color changing I felt it needed. Ultimately, though, I decided to go with what both prickvixen and ultraken has seperately suggested in conversation about it: abandon the PS version, and do it in AI, an environment I'm infinitely more comfortable with.

So I scanned my pencils and brought them into AI. This evening, I began pulling out paths. I'm not sure if it's any faster, but it's much easier for me to focus on it, and I know what I'm doing - I use semi-esoteric techniques I've worked out over time, and I play with new features.

It's not done yet, but here's a teaser close-up of what I've finished - the head.


That's some dykey haircut she has, eh? Probably about six hours work, I think. I love AI.

For those who wonder at my dark secrets of Illustrator, here's a few random notes...

• Some of the hair is done by making an art brush that's a simple triangle; pull out one curve with this and it's a clump of hair or ruff of fur. Play with the line wight to keep the mass livelier.
  
• What looks like one solid shape is probably not. I build things up from smaller shapes so I can control the curves, slip in shadows, overlap just right. I almost never use the Pathfinder palette. I just overlap stuff. There's no international shortage of paths to worry about.
  
• The inner ear was a very complex experiment that worked out as I planned. The main light area is a shape with a circular gradient in it, for some depth. Over that is a darker tan rectangle, at a low opacity... with a very complicated opacity mask added, that consists of several white-to-black blended lines. The mask combines with the rectangle to create the lines in the ear. Over that is all the ear tuft stuff, over that is the top of the ear.
  
• I layer aggressively, to organize my work and keep stuff I'm not fooling around with at the moment locked, or even hidden if needs be. Right now there's eight layers with shapes in them, several more empty ones, and all of them are named with what's in them or will be. The head is further subdivided into six layers, because, well, there's a lot of stuff going on in a head, and I tend to put about as much detail in a head as I do in the entire rest of the figure - it carries a lot of expression and character.
  
• My basic workflow is as follows:
  
  1. Photobloat: scan pencils. 300dpi, greyscale. Clean them up a little with levels. They don't have to be gorgeous, they just have to be legible for me.
     
  2. mode->bitmap; use a halftone screen. Save out the resulting 1-bit image as a TIFF.
     
  3. AI: New document. file->place the TIFF. Assign a color to it, preferably one that contrasts with my planned color scheme; bring the opacity down. I find that using the 'difference' mode works best, as it'll show up on anything, though it may look pretty damn ugly.
     
  4. Lock off the layer with the sketch; make some more layers beneath it.
     
  5. Start pulling out paths with the pen tool! 99% of the paths in my art are made entirely with the pen tool. The others are usually either text or geometric shapes. I really never use the brush or the pencil. Several hundred paths later it's done.
     
  6. Every color I use (except for the vile color I assign to the scan) is done via a global color swatch in the swatch palette. If I need to, I can jerk my palette around even when the whole image is done. This is a habit I picked up back in Deluxe Paint on the Amiga; I really feel constrained when I'm working on the computer and the software can't do it. Figuring out a way to do this on AI was what first drew me to it over Photoshop or Painter!

Comments

[mandrill.livejournal.com]

Nice!

Have you ever used that AI technique where you run the pencils through Adobe Streamline first and then adjust the smoothness of the lines in AI?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Nah, it's far more hassle than it's worth, to me, what with how smudgy and low-contrasty my pencils are. Plus using Streamline tends to bring up memories of obsessively tweaking its output (in Streamline, over the bitmap) to precisely evoke the curves the inker made - in the Spümcø web cartoon workflow, we called this 'optimizing', and spent countless man-hours on it. This is part of what taught me my very precise control over the pen tool, and gave me my pride in being able to blow my work up to billboard size without weird artifacts!

I can recognize Streamline's fingerprints on a promotional standup or flyer or whatever within half a second. I'm not sure this is a good or useful thing.

[mandrill.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know what you mean! I've tinkered with Streamline on a few occassions (to duplicate a client's logo) and decided it's easier to just import the image and trace over it in AI. Or if it's a drawing, to import the pencil into AI and just do the "inking" in Illustrator with the pen tool.

Do people actually still use Streamline for the production of artwork for flash animations? Or have they found a better way?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, yeah, most pro Flash cartooning uses Streamline, or the (worse) Flash auto-trace. I can usually see the telltale weirdnesses in close-ups! Some seem to draw over a scan in Flash for a look that is usually far too geometric for its own good.

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

That gradient in the ear is such an amazingly soft touch, like the gentle scrape of a powder puff or something akin. I was surprised to see lines in the first version, but thought they worked nicely in a way. I was going to ask you about inking when I saw the second version and remembered your usual style. Right, no brush for her!

I've yet to explore the subtleties of AI. I usually approach it like a fist. *shrug*

-T'

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

'Like a fist' usually describes my approach to Photoshop pretty well. It's all a matter of what works for the artist, really; AI's strengths and weaknesses are a far better match for the way I think about my art than any modern paint program.

I seem to be going for a softer look than usual in this piece... not sure why.

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for me, it's the other way around: I'm more comfortable in Photoshop. (Actually, I can do some good stuff in Illustrator and similar programs too, once I get the hang of the tool palettes and whatnot... but in Photoshop I'm very comfortable.) I've come up with some clever ways to make PS simulate an animated cel being inked and painted, and written some PS scripts to make the process go faster. (Of course, if someone else wanted to use the scripts, I'd have to tutor them in how I use them.) :}

Here are some samples of what I can do in PS:

http://www.conmicro.cx/~kturtle/cartoons/pd-beach.jpg
http://www.conmicro.cx/~kturtle/cartoons/mykebeeb.gif
http://www.conmicro.cx/~kturtle/cartoons/3-eyed-freak.jpg

[dingybatty.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tips. I'm still figuring out how to use that darn pen tool, but your tips will help.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Pen tool takes time to learn, yeah. Good point control boils down to three basic rules:

1. never try to turn more than 90° between two points
2. avoid S-curves, make them with three points, not two
3. control handles should be about 1/3 the length of the curve they define

Other than that, it's just a matter of learning how to use the alt, apple, and space keys while pulling out points to get different tools and modes without thinking about it. Which is simply a matter of practice.

[dingybatty.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I was told by someone else, though, that it's best to use as few points as possible.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

In my oh-so-humble opinion, whoever told you that was full of it. *grin*

Now, if you're doing work destined for Flash animation, yeah, you have to be merciless, because you have to worry about transfer time. And excessively complex paths can cause problems when printing - but blends and transparencies and pattern fills and gradient meshes and all those other modern effects can cause more; it's best to just export a color TIFF at the target printer's resolution anyway.

A few more points here, a few less points there - it's a balance, and my philosophy is to always err on the side of what gives me the smoothest control of the curve. I do try to use as few points as possible; I just have these rules that help me easily attain that goal. A point that saves you five minutes of swearing at awkward curve handles, trying to coax the perfect curve out of poorly-placed points, is not a superfluous point!

[dingybatty.livejournal.com]

*takes mental notes* Thanks! I'll definitely come back to what you wrote next time I dabble in AI.

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

Perhaps whoever said that was thinking of those people who use the pen tool by placing a point every quarter inch along the outline of whatever they're drawing, never using the curve handles, and end up using a hundred points to draw a simple circle that's noticeably bumpy anyway! This technique is an example of Not Getting The Concept.

[dnellin.livejournal.com]

I love watching your progress with the portrait of my favorite Alpha + Bat.

[revar.livejournal.com]

Alpha + Bat?

<voice type="booming">I am the Alpha and Omega!</voice> *snicker*

No folks, I don't know what she means either. :)

[dnellin.livejournal.com]

You've heard of Alpha personallities? Well, Revar is Alpha + (with attitude).

[revar.livejournal.com]

Oho! That would explain why I keep being followed by wuffs.

[hydra-velsen.livejournal.com]

Looks great Peggy! I love the background.

[revar.livejournal.com]

Niiiice. I like the non-outlined style. Can't wait to see the finished picture!