Artwork: Digital vs Traditional

[wyrdlyng]

Consider this two questions, one for artists and one for publishers.

Firstly, do you a an artist (aside from Greyorm who already responded) work exclusively in digital media? Meaning no use of anything not attached to a computer.

Secondly, do you as a publisher prefer one way or another? Do you care? Can you even tell (aside from obvious things like getting artwork in the mail, etc.)?

[b_bankhead]

I am working exclusively in digital media myself, at least for finished pieces. I do my sketches in pencil and scan them in and work over top of them. I'm not partial to using tablets, but maybe I havent practiced enough.  Being a low end wage slave I don't think I'd ever get it together to create a full up studio in normal media, the experimentation and practice necessary is just too expensiveand gaining skill would take way too long.

[Jon H]

I have a stock of scanned/photographed textures (plaster, filler, PVA etc etc) as starting points, but other than that I work digitally almost all my RPG and CCG work.

I use Painter Classic (!) an iMac and a tiny Wacom.  Not the world's most expensive set up, but it comfortably does what I want it to.  I do my sketches in Painter 9 times out of 10.

I use pencil for Games Workshop, and have done for other publishers in the past (Kenzer, Hogshead, Nightfall, Tower Games).

I used to paint traditionally, but now find it simply too time consuming, and have problems getting truly satifactory scans.

[Drew Baker]

I still work with traditional media, but not as much as I'd like.  I'm still attached to the idea of creating an object, and files backed up on CD really don't satisfy that for me.  Of course, I think I've done all of one card in the past year as a successful painting.  More often I scan pencils, or a few times I've started real paintings but had to finish them digitally due to deadlines.  Presently I'm shopping for a good easel...

Hey, I'll share examples:

My real painting -- you can see the brushstrokes  from priming the panel pretty clearly in the dark area in the upper right.  I still haven't gotten around to cleaning up the hands and robe, which I want to do for practice if nothing else.

Digital over pencils -- painted in Photoshop 6.

Hybrid painting 1 and Hybrid 2 -- at least this way I didn't get cadmium red all over myself.  You can see a lot more of the underpainting survives in the second one.  I was trying to do too much with that one for the time allowed.


--Drew

[philreed]

I use photos, the Wacom, a clip-art service, and scanned bits of junk and paint.

http://www.sjgames.com/innomine/ethereal/img/cover_lg.jpg

http://www.sjgames.com/in-nomine/gmg/img/cover_lg.jpg

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/in-nomine/img/cover_lg.jpg

[Jonathan Walton]

I too work completely digitally, shooting all my own images on a Sony CD Mavica digital camera, Photoshopping them together, and then, if I need vector-based graphics, switching over to Flash MX or Freehand 10.  Haven't yet gotten a pen tablet, but I might soon junk this machine for a tablet computer, to kill two birds with one stone.

[wyrdlyng]

Haven't yet gotten a pen tablet, but I might soon junk this machine for a tablet computer, to kill two birds with one stone.

This is an interesting side note. I wonder if more and more digital artists will eventually convert to tablet PCs (once the price comes down to a reasonable level). Alias|WaveFront has capitalized on the possiblity by releasing some Painter-like software to make use of the tablet's design. Gabe over at Penny Arcade has been using one for several weeks to produce the sites comics (and is even one of the artists featured in the product's gallery.

Sorry for the interruption, back to the topic. :)

[greyorm]

Firstly, do you a an artist (aside from Greyorm who already responded) work exclusively in digital media? Meaning no use of anything not attached to a computer.

Damn you're quick, Alex. I deleted that post the second after it went up as irrelevant to that discussion. As you've already referenced it, I'll put a more detailed response here instead.

I work nigh exclusively with digital media, from start to finish, especially since I upgraded to XP and my scanner stopped working. Occasionally I use a photo I've taken myself and use it as part of the composition (via my digital camera -- I did this with a number of the images for "Electric Ghosts").

I have a nice Wacom pen tablet, and use freehand sketching. I've tried Painter Classic (it came with the tablet) and tried out Painter 7, but haven't used them for much. I generally stick to Photoshop and drawing/painting by hand, plus various tricks I've developed to get certain stylistic looks with the filters.

[wyrdlyng]

The one thing I haven't seen yet is comments by any publishers. Do you not really care one way or another or have you just never stopped to consider it?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I'm a publisher! Here's my take on it.

1. I only work with electronic versions of the art, for publishing purposes. Ultimately, wherever they come from, the pieces have to be scanned and included in the PDF that goes to the printer.

2. Therefore it doesn't matter at all what medium was used to make the picture in the first place, logistically speaking. It matters a great deal, of course, that the style and look of the piece is right for the work. For instance, in Sorcerer books, I like a pen-and-ink pulp look for the art, and so for a while, I insisted that the originals be done in pen-and-ink. Since now some of the artists have shown that they can achieve that look using digital media (hi Jeremy!), I'm fine with that.

3. One of the most serious problems with electronically-produced work, though, is that many artists will always push the limits of their own systems and software to its utmost, producing very large files that often require specialized software or that have varying outcomes given the end-tech (e.g. PDF conversion or printing). If it looks fine on his screen, as far as this artist is concerned, it's done. The outcome is a lot of headaches, time, and expense at the publishing end. I have been known to take a full day fighting systems simply to get a piece printed, and then scan the printout at Kinko's to produce a file I can use for publication - clearly not a good situation in all kinds of ways.

Therefore, I beg and plead, if you're an artist and use digital media, keep format and usability in mind even at the cost of that wonderful click-feature that's just begging to be used.

Best,
Ron

[Scorpio]

A Cartographer's point of view- Yes, I have CC-Pro, and a number of other drawing/mapping programs...but 80% of my work is pen and paper. For maps, most publishers want something 'original' and unique. So I draw them,and scan them in. I do use Photoshop7 for coloring, whether RGB or Greyscale,of course-scanning a watercolor seems to miss a lot of subtle shades.I also use Photoshop for most text placement.
As Ron said, and with maps especially, the challenge is always to keep file size low as possible,yet keep details clear and consise,within the parameters of the project, for print and web viewing.

[Jon H]

.... If it looks fine on his screen, as far as this artist is concerned, it's done...

Only a very poor, very inexperienced digital artist would think that.  I'm sorry to hear of your trials, Ron, your artist sounds... clueless.

The file should have been a .TIF - compatable with everything.  The final file size is not altered by what you do with the image in any given software package, provided the end result is resampled to the correct resolution and physical size, and saved as a TIF.

That's really basic stuff that any digital artist should be aware of.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Jon,

My outlook is a little less harsh. A lot of the artists I use are just breaking into professional illustration, and God knows I don't have the vocabulary to specify to them just what I want (logistically speaking, not creatively). Also, I may not have been clear that I'm not discussing one particular artist at all - more of a tendency that can crop up in the heat of creation or discussion of a piece.

All that said, though, I definitely appreciate it when an artist shows the kind of experience and command of the medium that you're describing. So I do agree with you about the necessary standards that have evolved in this rapidly-changing field, and most of the artists I've worked with have done as you've described.

Best,
Ron