Some newbie questions

#1

Hopefully I’m not making one of those out of place newbie threads. Looked around to make sure it was okay to ask beginner stuff and didn’t see any stickies. Anyway, I’m a 2d web designer and I come here often to admire what you guys are doing. Lately I’ve been trying to figure out how to illustrate, figuring that it’ll help me produce more dynamically designed websites and graphics. I’m not making much progress.

Frankly, I haven’t had much luck with books. Most blab on about nothing and provide very little techniques / diagrams. Are there any books out there that you’d recommend to someone who is just starting out and wants to learn the technical side of drawing? Mainly anatomy and figure. Would be nice if I could find them at my library; I’m really tight on cash.

Also, I’m thinking of investing in a drawing tablet but have no idea what they’re like. Do you basically plug it in and the pencil becomes your mouse? Do your strokes show up like a pencil would on paper, or are they solid lines like the pencil tool in photoshop? Curious to if they work well with Adobe Illustrator…I’ve tried researching them, but haven’t quite figured out what the experience of using one is like.

Thanks for any help / suggestions

#2

Hi there. I’m afraid I can’t be of much help regarding your first question, but tablets I can help you with.

When you plug in a tablet (typically via USB) and install the drivers, the stylus basically becomes a second mouse. You can use it for anything you’d use a mouse for, though you can still pick up your mouse and use it at any time. When you hold the stylus within a centimeter or two from the tablet surface, the tablet senses it and places the cursor at the appropriate spot on the monitor. (Meaning if you hover over the upper-left corner of the tablet’s working area, the cursor will also be in the upper-left corner of the monitor.) To click, you tap the surface of the tablet in the appropriate spot. To click and drag–which is the basis of digital painting–you draw on the surface as you would with a pencil or pen or brush. The strokes appear on-screen. They’ll look just like they would with a mouse, but with two notable exceptions:

  1. The accuracy is much better. Tablets are designed for accurately translating the shape of your hand’s movement; a computer mouse isn’t. You’re also much more used to describing shapes with a pen or pencil.
  2. Pressure sensitivity! Depending on your brush settings, how hard you press on the tablet can control attributes like brush size, stroke opacity, brush tip angle, etc. (Higher-end tablets can also sense the angle of the stylus, as well as how it’s rotated.) This is a huge advantage that no mouse on the planet can offer.

You asked if the strokes show up like pencil on paper. Well, they can, if you use the right brush settings, but using a tablet won’t suddenly turn your strokes into pencil-like marks. With the exception of pressure sensitivity and so on, the strokes still look the same.

You might be wondering how it’s possible to get used to drawing without looking at your hand. It does take a little time, but you become accustomed to it pretty quickly. Remember, you can always tell where the cursor is because you move your hand around just above the tablet surface when you’re not actually painting. The cursor moves but doesn’t put any paint down.

Hopefully this has answered your questions…if not, let me know!

#3

Thanks a ton, Datameister.
Makes a lot more sense now.
Would you say it’s more handy than the traditional pencil, paper and scanner combo?

#4

Oh, good. I know it can be surprisingly hard to find information online, so I’m glad I could help.

Is using a tablet more convenient than scanning traditional drawings? Well, that depends on a lot of factors.

  1. How good is the scanner? If the scanner is subpar, the scans are going to look a lot “dirtier” than art drawn directly in the computer.
  2. How good are you with the tablet? At first, it will be awkward. But with practice, most people can get their digital linework up the quality of their traditional linework. (Especially in Painter, which has better smoothing of the strokes and you can rotate the canvas on the fly.) I know that I’m still much more comfortable doing linework physically on paper than on my tablet.
  3. Do you want to make a piece of art that looks exactly like pencil? If you do, it’s very difficult to mimic pencil perfectly in the digital world. You can produce results that are close…but they’re still obviously digital. If you want to paint in color, though, or produce effects that no pencil can, the digital medium is great.

A lot of artists these days are switching to all digital, but I don’t foresee myself doing that any time soon. Traditional and digital media are good for different things, and a well-rounded artist should be able to use both–especially traditional media–to his/her advantage.

#5

I personally dont’ draw on paper anymore, unless I’m not in front of my computer and wants to sketch something. I was a traditional artist for most of my life and I never would’ve imagined the computer would completely take over, but it has, and it’s just a matter of getting used to it. I find the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages for me.

Have you checked out the Loomis books listed in the sticky thread? That is a great place to start–and even just from those books alone you can reach very advanced level of competency.

#6

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