Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Hands on: Digital Inking in Photoshop CS5

So the search continued.

After seeing the potential and how alive the artwork becomes, it became kind of an obsession to find more and more about this "digital inking" thing. it was imperative that I found out how to get better, and with that comes finding the best tool for the job.

After trying Sketchbook Pro for a while I became sort of comfortable using it. But one thing I haven't experimented on was the sizes of the art boards.  Sure it was fun to use a wide format for sketches but not for an american comic book page format. A comic book page is roughly 11 x 17 inches, although it may vary due to different processes depending on how you like to work (either digitally or traditional) this is the official size. And Sketchbook Pro just doesn't cut it.

Aside from that, I needed to learn, and fast because I was contacted by a client from Deviant Art (my first international commission by the way) to draw a 6 page horror story. I was very exited and had the pencils for the first two pages already finished, but I needed to ink them. I was planning on inking them traditionally, you know as a way of practicing for the real deal, but once again, time is the enemy.

I decided to just dive myself into doing it directly on Photoshop. Like everything else, you just have to go for it. After watching a couple of You Tube Tutorials and a few tricks of my own I managed to ink for the first time a comic book page that resembles the real thing. And to my surprise it wasn't so bad. Here a sample of the finished Page:



















And as I said before, I'm very interested in doing video tutorials about all the things that I'm learning, so I can practice and pass on the knowledge to anyone that can benefit from it.

Therefore I give to you, my first digital Inking Video Tutorial :


I hope to get more kick ass as time passes, in the meantime we are just part of the process. 

4 comments:

  1. Congrats on the first Video Tutorial! Nice work. Keep it fresh, find your vibe and most of all figure out what makes you different and original. Love that you ain't the peppy, perky kind of "tutorialist".

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  2. Hey Esau, I just wanted to tell you that your comment about finding the right tutorial was spot on. Incidentally your tutorial was the one that gave me the motivation and confidence to actually try digital inking, not just tinker with the idea. Thanks for spreading your knowledge!

    -Brad-

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  3. Brad, your welcome! I'm very happy that it helped you in some way. I firmly believe the only way of learning is by going ahead and doing things.

    Let's keep learning together and inspire more people.

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