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Artist Chat - Tools, Tips, Tricks
Zhurrie
Posts: 617
On the old forums there were a couple threads about art and I thought the new place could use a good artist thread. I know there are a good number here and I always like to hear about other people's setups and beloved tools. I also thought if there is interest maybe a weekly themed sketch thread where everyone could participate and create a sketch around a central theme. Those always help me to work a little loose and force myself to draw even if I'm busy or not in the mood. Let me know if you'd be down.
I still love traditional media and stick to a mix of tools, I usually use Speedball Black ink for waterproof everyday work and I will use a Japanese Yasutomo Sumi-e ink for washes or even for linework. I also keep around a bottle of old-school walnut ink. I use Windsor Newton Cotman III No. 2 brushes mostly as well as bamboo quill/pens. I do have some nibs and Pentel brush pens and technical pens but mostly stick to the brush or bamboo quills. I even have a few sharpened and repurposed bamboo takeout chopsticks that have become favorites with ink. A Staedtler Mars lead holder and HB or 2H is my main workhorse pencil. Outside of those I love my Yasutomo brushes as well as a tiny super cheap Chinese brushpainting brush that is worth maybe $0.10 but I will be heartbroken when it gives up the ghost.
I still love traditional media and stick to a mix of tools, I usually use Speedball Black ink for waterproof everyday work and I will use a Japanese Yasutomo Sumi-e ink for washes or even for linework. I also keep around a bottle of old-school walnut ink. I use Windsor Newton Cotman III No. 2 brushes mostly as well as bamboo quill/pens. I do have some nibs and Pentel brush pens and technical pens but mostly stick to the brush or bamboo quills. I even have a few sharpened and repurposed bamboo takeout chopsticks that have become favorites with ink. A Staedtler Mars lead holder and HB or 2H is my main workhorse pencil. Outside of those I love my Yasutomo brushes as well as a tiny super cheap Chinese brushpainting brush that is worth maybe $0.10 but I will be heartbroken when it gives up the ghost.
Comments
As to pencils, I inherited most of my father's old drafting equipment and there's really no limit to what he'd left for me to play with - graphite to charcoal to pastel to watercolor pencils.
Torch, it is really about the style and feeling when it comes to things like tech pens or what have you. Because of the fixed width they can sometimes seem colder where a brush seems warmer, but I have seen tons of people that get past that in both directions through their own style. I'm always kind of in between the really slick and clean lines and the sketchy and or textured lines of some brushwork. That's why I like the bamboo quill pens because I get some variation and texture but most of the control and precision of a tech pen.
I know Craig Thompson (Blankets, Habibi, etc.) has spoken about how he roughs up his Pentel brush pens to give them more of a natural brush look, and I have tried it with a PITT brush pen I had and liked it. I kind of mashed it a bit and got it to lose some rigidity by pressing it sort of on the side back and forth and it softened up and I could get some good results. I keep it in my bag for travel now. I also keep a Koi brand little watercolor set that has a water brush in it and a small 4"x6" or 5x7 watercolor block.
I recently picked up a Fujitsu ST5112 slate PC (recommended highly by the artist Daarken) for on the go art and I'm still adjusting to it but at like $200 ion eBay they are way cheaper than a Wacom Cintiq and with an Axiotron Studio Pen it is essentially the same thing, actually better because of the portability. Otherwise I scan my stuff in sometimes to play with coloring or ideas digitally without having to commit or ruin the original. I have a medium older Wacom Bamboo graphics tablet too on my main computer. I like the feel of drawing right on the screen though.
The theme is: Create a superhero based on a classical or cultural story character!
This is open to any and all skill levels and the only point is to have some fun and not about creating finished masterpieces. Doodles, napkin sketches, glorified stick figures, whatever... the point is to learn and grow and to have fun doing it! I'm happy to take themes or concepts for future sketch threads. I think this could be a fun addition.
PENCILS
I do all my sketching with Staedtler HB pencils, mainly because their cobalt blue color fills me with joy. I like HB because it gets satisfyingly dark but the graphite is hard enough that I can draw on both sides of the paper in my sketchbook without having a lot of transferring and smearing between the earlier pages.
Most of my final pencils are done with 2H pencils of whatever random brand (but not Staedtler so I can tell at a glance that they're not blue so they must be 2H's).
PAPER
My go-to paper for final artwork is 11x17" 67# cover stock for color copiers. I buy it in reams from a paper supplier for print shops. The brands on printing papers change all the time, but I believe Domtar Micro-copy is the current ream I'm working with.
It feels and takes ink just like 1-ply bristol, but it's not strictly "archival" -- and it costs less than 5 cents a sheet.
INKING
When I'm out of the studio and need something portable, I ink with a Pentel Pocket Brush, which I find tremendously responsive. It's a really good brush in its own right.
On my pages, I generally ink with a #1 or #2 Winsor & Newton Series 7 brush, though I'll experiment with other sizes and brands here and there.
I've tried three inks so far:
- Higgins Black Magic, which is not very satisfying in the darkness department.
- Speedball Super Black, which is satisfyingly dark but thicker than I prefer and tends to clog up on the brush so I have to rinse and wipe the brush tip a lot more often to keep a clean line.
- Dick Blick Black Cat, which is my favorite of the three. It's nice and dark but not as thick as the Speedball.
LETTERING
On my main comic (http://jackcomics.com/), I letter in illustrator because that's how I was doing it when I started out on the strip and I want to keep the look consistent.
For side projects, I've been doing all the lettering by hand, experimenting with each piece to see what works for me. I have tried dip pens and technical pens, and on my current side project I'm using the same brush that I use for everything else. I thought it would be more difficult, but the brush is giving the most satisfactory results of the three so far. Once I'm warmed up I can handle the curves pretty consistently, and it's a nicer look having the same line quality for everything.
I use a pencil
paper with blue lines
a triangle
pens
and a scanner
lol
I'll have to compile a list of my tools
Ink is a personal thing for sure, my grandfather was an artist and owned an art shop and I luckily inherited some of his old sketchbooks and in one he had pages devoted to every ink he could find and he did the same test with each on the same paper and it was awesome to see them all side by side and the differences. Sadly some are now not able to be found since they were done in the 70s. I really like my Yasutomo Sumi-e ink though but it can on the rare occasion have some trouble with water over it, and when I want to be 100% sure I go for the Speedball Super Black which is rock solid waterproof and I trust it fully to be. How does the Dick Blick ink fare in that regard? Pelikan has some great inks but they can be thick too if you don't like that. My grandfather had a bunch of awesome old Italian inks too, I'll have to search someday and see if any are still available.
Speaking of great inks lost to the ages, I was stopping by a local gallery the other day and saw a pen and ink drawing by Tom Lea (El Paso's homegrown artist hero) from the 30s or 40s that was being framed. My jaw dropped at the rich, rich, RICH black of that ink. It was so dark and so opaque I couldn't believe it.
What kind of art does your son like to make? What tools/mediums does he gravitate toward? I'm sure Chris, myself, and others could definitely give you some basic tools and books/resources that would be helpful for him. My background is more in "fine" art (oils and some watercolor) but I love to do brushpainting/sumi-e and I've always loved playing with cartooning and superhero/mech/comic stuff.
When he turned 11 he went through You Can Draw: Marvel Characters by Dan Jurgens
There have been many similar books after that ( drawing Manga, drawing The Simpsons,etc..) He has recently devoured Scott McCloud's books (btw. all those books are available in German as well)
Book (for artists) recommendations are very much appreciated.
As a father it makes me especially proud that he was one of the 5% of applicants that have been deemed worthy to attend art school. The school is state run - so only skills and not the money are crucial to get in.
Regarding what kind of art he likes to do most - only time will tell. He's open to so many types. We as a family have always been very interested in the arts. So he grew up with all kinds of stuff. We'll see....
I own and recklessly (and unashamedly) buy any and all art supplies I want. I may hate them, I may never use them, I might use them in a completely unintended way for something else but a new feel or texture or mistake will sometimes end up in magic. That fearlessness of your son's is perfect!
I enjoy watching online videos (vimeo is great) of artist's processes and speedpaintings, etc. Seeing how they approach things or how they arrive at what they do even sped up usually is a great start. Some books I love:
Chinese Painting Techniques for Exquisite Watercolors by Lian Quan Zhen
Street Sketchbook: Journeys by Tristan Manco
Beginner's Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop by Nykolai Aleksander
Watch any and every Hayao Miyazaki film
Acrylic Revolution
These aren't the best but I like them, Gordon Mackenzie's various notebooks
Sketchbooks of artists I like and on general topics
Art books of old Japanese masters like Hokusai and Hiroshige
I also take photos of anything and everything that catches my eye.
Making time every day to draw and to see compositions and new things is the most important though and art school is great for that. It forces you to try new things and techniques rather than stagnating. I have all kinds of fancy art supplies and some of my favorites are a set of bamboo "quill" pens that cost about $1, a crappy Chinese brushpainting brush that came in some little travel set worth about $0.10, a set of bamboo takeout chopsticks that I have modified into ink "pens", and some $1-3 W&N Cotman III watercolor brushes. I do have a few expensive sable watercolor brushes that I love too though and a nice set of Japanese sumi-e brushes.
so I ask again, with the ipad what stylus does everyone prefer?
I tried looking and couldn't find my exact stylus model quickly on Dealextreme, but their shipping always takes forever so I'd recommend just an inexpensive one from Amazon or even eBay. They are all essentially the same since the iPad doesn't support pressure levels/Wacom support so all they basically are is a metal ferrule with a conductive tip. Nothing fancy or special about them. Some have a more rubbery conductive tip and some have a sort of foam conductive tip, I prefer the foam ones for drawing on an iPad because the rubbery ones grip too much and are better for touching/typing than sliding across the screen.
PENCILS
I pretty much stick to non-photo blue pencils, as I am too lazy to erase after inking. I liked Col-erase for a long, long time, but suddenly they seemed too waxy and hard (maybe I bought a bad batch). Lately, I've been relying on Staedtler non-photo blue pencils. They're softer and drier than anything I've tried, and erase really well between revisions. The only hitch, I've found, is that a dull blade in your sharpener will lead to a lot of broken lead and tears.
PAPER
I've been using Canson recycled XL series. It takes a lot of punishment and holds a nice line. One nice feature is that the sheets are plate finish on one side, vellum on the other.
INKING
I use pretty much any #2 sable I can find for most of my inking. Sometimes I cheat with a Sakura Pigma 1.0 pen. Once you get the felt worn in on those a bit, it's almost like a little brush. I keep experimenting with different inks, but I always come back to Black Magic. The trick, I've found, is to leave the cap off a fresh bottle for a few days. This lets whatever they use to thin it out to evaporate a bit. It'll thicken as you work your way through the bottle, so I just periodically add fresh ink from a second bottle to maintain the thickness that I like. I also really like Speedball Super Black right out of the bottle, but it usually thickens up on me too much about halfway through.
Traditional tools:
I use non-photo blue leads in a holder. I use it for layout and marking off things.
I use a variety of pencils, #2, HB, 4H, 2B. Mainly #2s though. I like them for some reason. Went back to them after about 12 years post art school.
I use the heavy stock blue line pro paper.
I ink with steadler tech pens, faber castle PITT pens, and a shitty disposable brush. I am bad at cleaning brushes so I toss them.
Black Magic is the ink. As Mister D said, letting it evaporate is a great thing. I also pur my new ink in with the old.
I'm not big on inking with brushes. I can't get the feeling I want out of them like a tech pen. I do sometimes use a brush over the pen to enhance it.
Digital:
photoshop
Wacom Intuous 4
and lots of patience.
My son had the chance to work with them and is now obsessed with copics.
And who's the poor sod to buy them.....the artist's father....me ~X(
Those markers don't come cheap - but I understand they are top of the line and will be around for at least a lifetime. There are many good sites and tutorials out there.
But still - if you guys could share your very own encounters with COPIC. That'll be nice.
I always store mine with the skinny nib side *down*. The fatter side will absorb more ink and if stored on their ends vertically the skinny side can and will lose its ability to lay down that really lush/wet amount of color so keeping them skinny side down helps gravity keep that in check. The fatter side will always have plenty of ink. Using good marker paper is a must if he plans to use a blender otherwise it won't have much effect.
It was funny this thread got bumped to the top I was just coming here to post about the Pentel Pocket Brush Pens. AMAZING! The artist/writer Craig Thompson turned me on to these and they are the best thing ever. Basically a small cartridge of ink gets popped into a synthetic bristle nib and then enclosed in the case and it drains down through the brush as you work. I've used Sakura and Faber-Castell brush nibbed tech pens but they only lay down one heavy line that is basically always the same. I used to rough them up and abuse then to get a better brush effect... no more. The Pentel is the closest thing to a real brush and ink you can get without carrying ink and a brush around. For daily sketches and smaller work I actually have come to prefer the Pentel. If you move fast it gives the perfect dry-brush effect and by adjusting your stroke speed you can get thick heavy blacks. I'm a convert 100% and bought up a ton just in case they ever become hard to find.
When pencilling, I switch back and forth between using Col-Erase Sky Blue pencils and a good ol' wooden 2H pencil. I feel like the Col-Erase give me a little more fluidity in my line, and as I'm trying to get more life and gesture in my work, it's been my pencil of choice. However, I'm fickle and may switch back at any time.
I use a Winsor-Newton Series 7 #2 brush for about 90% of my inking. I think I'd like to move up to a #4 soon, though. The cost may be prohibitive, but a 4 would allow me to still get the fine lines, but would allow for a juicier line/shape on organic stuff like rocks, trees, etc. When I don't use a brush, I use a Zebra Disposable Brush Pen (fine). This tool is surprisingly versatile and has replaced Micron Pigmas for me, as it's rigid enough to rule with, but has enough "give" to provide line variance when I choose—it's also my primary tool when I'm doing storyboard jobs.
Old brushes are never thrown out. Instead, they're put in my drybrush jar. I have a variety of nasty old brushes that I use for various drybrush and split-brush techniques.
I have a 16-oz bottle of Speedball SuperBlack ink that I fill into a small ink bottle. It lasts a few months. The bigger bottles tend to get too gunky by the time I get to the bottom, so I never buy more than 16-oz at a time.
On my creator-owned material, my paper of choice is Strathmore 500 2-ply smooth bristol. For work-for-hire jobs that don't provide paper, I'll use the cheapest Strathmore comic paper I can find (usually the 200 series), smooth surface.
At conventions, I use a Pentel Pocket Brush and my trusty Zebra Disposable Brush Pen on smooth bristol.
When I work tonally, I either use Copic markers or a diluted black watercolor.
I'll sometimes add a rough edge to a large black area with a Stabilo grease pencil (when I'm too lazy/pressed for time to drybrush it).
http://www.jetpens.com/Zebra-Disposable-Brush-Pen-Fine/pd/2307
http://www.jetpens.com/Pentel-Pocket-Brush-Pen-for-Calligraphy/pd/1793
The paper you use is a big factor in how Copics perform, too.
I wasn't crazy about the Dick Blick markers just because they don't work well with Copics, but the Prismacolor markers are great. I have quite a few and like them.
Also, lately I've gone back to a Wacom Cintiq. I still use my Fujitsu ST5112 Wacom enabled slate PC on the go but there is just no denying the Cintiq and how great it is. That is one piece of expensive kit that has no equal as much as I wish it weren't so. Bulky and annoying to position and find space for but still hands-down the best digital experience.
@Zhurrie, thanks for the tip on storing them. I just ordered a case to store them vertically, so you're saying brush side down, chisel side up? (I use the Sketch markers)
Got them off a great site called Merriarts.com that undercut Blick by a sheckel or two as well.