Cost of making comics

[woodwater]

well this time i us the transparency tool as you suggested, then i dont know if i did it right with the layers, but set the rectangle for light orange and started coloring and inking the images over it

[handrawn]

to move a layer - click on it to highlight it and then drag with the mouse

let me repeat what has been said elsewhere - there is no right or wrong way to do this - whatever works for you, and you are happy with is fine

I am just suggesting one way here, which I think is best suited to a vector program such as xtreme and for this you need to get hold of the concept of coloring shapes that are seperate from your drawn lines and you need to draw these coloring shapes in xtreme

I'm attaching four files - in the first I created a new layer above your scan and drew a closed shape following the head

the second file I have dragged the layer below, and given the shape a better color [black is just the default]

the third file I have removed the outline from the shape give it some feathering and a slight resize

the fourth file I have made a shape for the hand - which of course goes below the scan but above the head shape

you carry on making shapes for the each drawing element on thier own layers, being careful to get them in the right order [just takes a bit of thought and practice]

you then make additional shapes on each layer that you wish to give highlights to - eg the hair

I hope this helps to make what I am suggesting clearer

if you really want to 'paint' the color in, onto the scanned drawing [nothing wrong with this], you might well find it easier in another program such as photoshop elements, or gimp, or artrage, or artweaver... there are lots of these and the last three I mentioned are free

xtreme is not a painting program...

[woodwater]

Looks a bit time consuming.
Of the free softwares which one you find better and more complete for comics?

thanks

[handrawn]

yes

beleive you me - comics are - if you want to do them right..


Your question is a difficult one

Pencil line is always a problem - ink is a lot simpler

How important is it that you preserve the original artwork?

If you are not too fussed there is a quick and dirty fix that involves you effectively drawing the coloring shape boundaries on the paper rather than on the computer, which I find easier

difficult to explain without examples - I'll need to dig something out if you are intertested...

[woodwater]

ok anyway i just downloaded artweaver and i also watched two gimp tutorials. They seem to have a lot for free softs. Even magic wands.
by the way i like to ink in software due to the problems indian ink poses. Money and mistakes. You cant make mistakes when you ink on paper

[handrawn]

fine - that is good from the point of view of saving you time

I just like the line of a pen, and the speed.. that comes from a couple of decades of practice...

You can however make mistakes doing it digitally that you cannot recover from, a favorite is overwriting a file you didn't mean to, or not saving before that crash or.... well anyway you get the idea...

[woodwater]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng-73sA7lr0

look at this. Is photoshop even better than free gimp?

[handrawn]

darn nothing easy to hand - but basically: [ it only works with inking ]

what you do is use a second pen with red ink and close all the gaps on the paper that you left open

scan this into a program such as photoshop/elements and duplicate the layer

on the top layer tell photoshop to delete the red [this is easy]

on the bottom layer sample the red and tell photoshop to turn it all black [this takes a bit of practice]

save as psd - import into xtreme

stained glass transparency for the top layer

for the layer underneath bitmap trace - since you have closed all the gaps, and if you have got the 'blackness' right in photoshop, it will break into shapes fine [cf: Paul's tutorial] - you can always tweak the contrast in xtreme of course

ok thats the general idea.... haven't done it for a while...

[handrawn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng-73sA7lr0

look at this. Is photoshop even better than free gimp?

had to watch that with sound off - so might have missed something

in what way better?

all the guy is doing there is putiing stuff together that was premade - you could use just about any graphic program for that, its not art, its layout

friend of mine has a joke:

customer: 'your camera takes nice pictures'
photographer: 'your mouth makes nice compliments'

and I, when asked if I like, say Elvis, or for that matter Shostakovich, will reply "I don't know, I never met him, but he sang/wrote some great music"

the point - no program [worthy of attention] is better than any other, 'just because'.
[that myth is one of the curses of this place]

I can say what is best for a particluar job, for me.

I can suggest you try some programs I think you might find useful - but only you can find that out - so try them If we can, we will help.

[steve.ledger]

customer: 'your camera takes nice pictures'
photographer: 'your mouth makes nice compliments'

Excellent! Love it! Spot on too