Your Tools and Process!

[Rob]

Awesome Jeffa congrats on the new projects... and welcome back.

The Farnsworth thing is killing me. I was just watching some of the new season on line and the third one about the Eye Phone where they are sending all their junk electronics to another planet and a reporter asks if all the waste is dangerous and the mayor says "not after some minimum wage nobodies take it to the third world" and Farnsworth turns to the rest of the crew in the crowd and says "Good News nobodies!" I was cracking up. Man I'm glad that show is back. It hasn't quite hit it's stride yet in that it isn't quite the show it was before it was cancelled but I'm sure it will settle down and get there eventually. Family Guy had the same problem.

[klingers]

I've been a stickler for Adobe Flash as a drawing tool as far back as Macromedia Flash 4.

I've tried other vector-based illustration tools like Illustrator, Inkscape and the like over the years but I've never found another tool that's as good as Flash with one simple concept: Free-form, deformable vector shapes without pivot points that aren't treated as "paths".

If you know what I mean by that, in ten years I've never found a tool that's as good at taking your drawn shape (line, polygon, closed) and just letting you grab an edge, pull/tweak that edge and having one side of the drawing warp like it's being pulled.

It's a fantastic and very intuitive way for a very left-brained person like me to get drawings looking how I'm happy with. I'm not being self-deprecating when I say I'm nowhere near as talented as most of you fine people from what I've seen, just practical. I'm a programmer, not an artist. Flash's vector smoothing makes up for my unsteady hand (I'm also left-handed, yet use a mouse with my right-hand... Go figure) and having the ability to layer elements and tweak/distort/scale/place drawing elements independant of each other goes a long way to helping me get on screen what's in my mindset.

For comparison, this is one of my few traditionally hand-drawn comics (I was experimenting) from 2004. All my new stuff is back to vector-based, as to be honest it's much easier for this lazy programmer than actually learning to draw properly ;-) I do of course like a challenge but sometimes I need the familiary to get myself in drawing mode.

[misterguh]

Is it weird posting in an old thread? Just wanted to share my old fashioned tools of the trade:

• grid ruler
• Borden&Riley #234 Paris paper
• Any old ink I have around, usually Speedball india ink
• Turner Acryl Gouache
• Photoshop, Wacom Bamboo tablet and mouse
• Tachikawa G-nib and Hunts 102
• .03 mm mechanical pencil and eraser
• Escoda brush #10
• metal ruler with pennies taped to the back
• Peanut Chews