"ink & Colour" - How to get clean lines for hand drawn cartoons

[ItaloBaudo]

Hi there!

My name is Italo Baudo. I just come across this very interesting
forum for cartoonists. I used to be a newspaper cartoonist in South America many
years ago but one day I received a threat from somebody high up in goverment
there, and was scared to death, leaving cartoons drawing as a mere hobby.

I would like to come back to it and take it to the next level and I just wonder
if you can suggest me what are the best softwares to "ink & colour" the
penciled cartoons for putting them online or for printing.

Once I have the frames ready for inking and the cartoons penciled, I of course
scan them into the computer...then, which software are excellent for processing
them into a "publisheable" state?

I heard that Adobe Illustrator for inking and Photoshop for colouring are good.
In your experience, is that information correct, and what can you suggest to me
please?

if you can spare just a couple of minutes to reply to this message I will be very grateful to you.

Many thanks and kind regards,

Italo Baudo
tvbau7@googlemail.com

[LeahG]

Hi Italo

Thank you for joining the forum


I draw first in pencil then I draw the final version using a black Sharpie permanent marker (ultra fine tip) or Faber Castle fibre tipped pen. I then crisp up the lines after scanning by vectorising them.

If you want to vectorise your drawings and have nice clean crisp lines, you can use this program
http://vectormagic.com

I myself scan my images in black and white only, then I vectorise the line drawings and colour and edit in Inkscape (a Free equivalent to Illustrator) alternatively, I colour in Photoshop and then vectorise and edit in Inkscape.

[Simon]

Hi there Italo. My process is much the same. I draw in pencil first then ink with a black marker making sure all the lines are closed so that it's half the battle when making color fills in Photoshop. http://www.gimp.org/ Is a free alternative to Photoshop btw.

I have Illustrator but I'm still battling to get my head round doing vector graphics. I can do it but it never looks as good as if I did it with just a black pen. Nice clean crisp lines sure, but for me atm a compromise in control. I'm sure it's just me though, I was never good at Maths. I'll work it out one day.

Leah, what's the point of inking the pencil if you are going to vectorise? Surely you can just go over the pencil lines to the same effect saving you from having to that?

Also do you then group all the points or what to establish a completed vector output? Like you would start with the outline then do the other bits (eg: eyes mouth nose etc if it were a face) and then just group them or what? I'm sorry but you mention clean and crisp but when I try it, it looks all jagged and squarish really.

Do you drag the nodes to get curves or just do short intermittent strokes to achieve a curve? Because if I try to drag around a shape, it's fine but then the next node goes off at a tangent. I hope this doesn't sound too stupid.

[mac the fork]

Simon,
Leah points to VectorMagic, its a neat utility to automatically convert your lines to vector graphics.
BUT it needs good sharp black and white to get the best results, hence black ink.
I am thinking of trying it out, you get a free trial version at her lik.

It bugs me though: it doesnt tell you how much the license costs! I am NOT going to register and all that just to find out the price! ridiculous.
How much, Leah?

[ItaloBaudo]

Many thanks Leah!

Italo

[ItaloBaudo]

Many thanks Simon, very useful indeed!

Italo

[Kathy]

Here's my cent-and-a-half...sketch in pencil, sometimes ink with a fine marker and sometimes not. Scan and bring into Illustrator. Draw with the pen tool (which can be mastered, it just takes practice!) and then I also color in Illustrator. Some people color in Photoshop, or will add shading in Photoshop. But I like to keep it all vector for easy editing because I change my mind alot!

Experimentation will help you develop your own method.

[LeahG]

Simon,
Leah points to VectorMagic, its a neat utility to automatically convert your lines to vector graphics.
BUT it needs good sharp black and white to get the best results, hence black ink.
I am thinking of trying it out, you get a free trial version at her lik.

It bugs me though: it doesnt tell you how much the license costs! I am NOT going to register and all that just to find out the price! ridiculous.
How much, Leah?

The software itself is around £180

I myself pay a monthly subscription of around £5-£6, I find it well worth it.

@ Simon
I never save images in pencil for many reasons, one is that I sketch , sketch , and then sketch some more re pencil so what the heck would be scanned? A right mess and it'd use a lot of memory saving in colour etc. So I sketch then finalise in ink, then it's a quick process to scan in black and white eliminating all those nasty pencil marks (saves me rubbing them out) and the vectorisation is simple process. I shade in inkscape and can eliminate any errors etc. easily. It's the bomb