When I’m drawing close-up on the page and I’ve zoomed in really far to see close-up, I lose the ability to see the full page at the same time.
I need to see how what I am drawing affects the entire composition. Without having to zoom out and then back in to finish what I am doing I use this time-saving little tip…
I open the file I am working on and draw from afar with the whole page in my sight. When I need to zoom in I open the file again and reduce both documents on my screen so I can see them at the same time.
With one image close-up and the other image zoomed out I can draw looking at the zoomed out and checking my line quality on the close-up or vice-versa.
It works great and saves time by not zooming in and out.
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Hey, just wanted to let you know that this post got me thinking about different Moving, Zooming, and Viewing techniques that I wasn’t taking advantage of in Illustrator. I wrote an article on this over at aiburn.com. Let me know what you think - http://aiburn.com/article/moving_through_infinite_vision.
Also, I like the redesign. Thanks.
Looks like the period threw off the link and I don’t see editing turned on so here is the correct link http://aiburn.com/article/moving_through_infinite_vision
Pretty Lame. Denham hasn’t posted anything in like over 5 months and when he finally does its a lame piece of advice like this one. He started this sight with the intent of helping beginners learn how to make comics with illustrator, but eons pass between any significant posts. 5 months later and we don’t even get an video tutorial on his inking and coloring processes or any thing like that. Why start a site to teach and exchange ideas to help people when you never post any thing?
Sean-Thanks for the link to your site. I was just there recently and I love it!
If anyone needs more useful tutorials check out http://www.aiburn.com
Slaydo–
All of the early tutorials are all you need to get started drawing comics with Illustrator. I was using 10 for most of the Marvel work I’ve done and that worked fine for me.
I did start this site with the intention of helping people with Illustrator. Specifically, how to draw comics with Illustrator. I haven’t posted as frequently as I would have liked and I hope to change that with the new year.
I’ll also merge my portfolio site with this one so that people can see what I’ve drawn with Illustrator. Hopefully that will help people see what is possible with Illustrator.
I’ve also switched this sight to Wordpress from the free Blogger system. Hopefully this will allow me to post more stuff than I could have at blogger.
I appreciate your patience with me waiting for new posts.
If there is something you’d like to know about, please leave a message and I’ll see if I can help. I know I’ve responded to lots of people through private messages that I really should have left as full posts that would have helped other people too.
Thanks for your comment,
Brian Denham
P.S.
I’ll post everyone’s comment. I only moderate them to avoid spam. No need to be so angry over something that is offered for free.
I appreciate your passion and I understand you want to see new posts. You at least get something helpful from the information and I’m thankful for that. Thank you for coming back, I’ll have something more substantial this week!
Mr. Denham, I apologize for my earlier attitude. I was in the service myself, so I never had the chance to study the craft in the traditional sense that you have have perfected digitally in illustrator. It’s just that I’ve found the general illustrator community to be very unhelpful when it comes to trying to learn how to do specific things. People obviously know how to do very complex operations, but when asked about their method, usually don’t respond.
I had emailed you around the time of your post in july asking for help on specific things, on your email and your myspace, but I never got a response.
I believe in what you’re doing here and I even bought your Killbox Pocket Manga from amazon.com to study your work and support your efforts in illustrator, but I’m just frustrated at the lack of support in the illustrator community and what appears to be an apathetic attitude towards those seeking to learn.
You are at the top of your game and at the four front of the illustrator elite in making comics with illustrator, since mostly everyone else uses photoshop, a program which I hate myself.
I don’t have a background in the traditional medium as I have a heavy hand that applies pressure that wears down even a gripper pencil with surprising speed. So I need to see more of the drawing in illustrator from scratch process than someone who went to school for art.
I loved your work on Hypervelocity and on Nova, and I have a few questions that I hope that you might be able to help me with.
How do I give my rough sketched characters the solidity that you achive in your pieces? Is there a secret I’m missing, because illustrator does not seem like the best program for sketching as perssure sensitivity has no bearing on line thickness. How do you bring your sketches to life form a bunch of squiggly lines? I seem to have hit a wall.
Do you have any videos of your workflow at various points, preferably from start to finish ?
Do you have any AI files that you can legally send to those seeking to study and dissect how you did your pieces?
Whenever I’m trying to trace a photo or cover, I’ve found that the eyedripper tool wil give me a very off color, and that the closest I’ll come to getting the original color is to zoom in almost to max. How do I get more exact colors when tracing over a cover page or more realistic colors for skin tones?
I know you have deadlines to meet, but I hope you can find time help when you can.
Thank you for your comments. I’d love to answer them all right now for you but I am on a tight deadline with Marvel. I’ll be able to answer them in more detail on Jan. 1st when I’m through with my new book.
I can answer a couple of things though…
1) I will post a finished Illustrator file next week that everyone can download and see how all of my art is created in Illustrator. I’ll try to add a layer of notes as well.
2) I haven’t colored any of the work I have done in Illustrator. It’s all done by the talented guys at ( http://www.Guru-eFx.com ) and they use Photoshop. There are very talented people using Illustrator to color but I’m not one of them. Check on DeviantArt for vector illustrators for some cool tutorials and inspiration.
3) I sketch in various layers. The lowest layer is just a .25 Stroke and no fill. I’ll sketch until I think the drawing is pretty accurate to what I need. I’ll turn down the opacity on that layer and then start a new layer to sketch on. I’ll draw more accurately at this point. Just as if I was drawing on paper and erasing my early sketches and keeping the more detailed images to work from as I complete my drawing. After that it’s all a matter of adding thick lines on shadowed areas and placing black shadows. I’ll usually create a layer with light baby blue FILL’s to put shadows where I think they’ll be. Then I’ll go in on a new layer with heavy black shadow FILLS where the blue guidelines were.
4) For an accurate color selector try a freeware program called ColorCop. I love it. ( http://www.colorcop.net )
5) you can change pressure sensitivity by double clicking the brush you want and changing it to pressure sensitivity. I use the pencil tool for most of my work by drawing around the shapes and shadows I need.
Hope that helps for some quickie answers. Check back through the blog and read the comments. I know there is some good info there as well as the posts.
I’ll post some new tips on New Years.
Thanks,
Brian Denham
I for one cannot wait for that file so I can study it to take my own work to a higher level. Thank you.
Actually I found Brian’s site to be very helpful. It got me up and running with the quick how to’s and also it helped when I bought a book on Illustrator and learnt something from that. Also Brian done me the biggest favour in the world, I used to pester him with emails regarding silly little things, normally there wasn’t an answer but liek you said Brian due to schedules etc I can see why
But this also gave me the biggest help as well as I had to learn on my own how to do certain techniques. Absolutely fantastic because I had to put in the groundwork to learn it and then went from there.
On a sidenote I did switch over to Photoshop for my drawing for a while, although the results are the same, it can take twice as long. Also as you’re using pixels and not vectors to draw the linework doesn’t look as sharp.
Also on an additional note, unless you’re going for the cel-shaded look for your drawings (pathfinder tool rocks for this) I wouldn’t bother using illustrator for colouring comic art, photoshop far outshines illustrator in this department, so I use a hybrid of the two. I pencil and ink in illustrator, then colour, letter and complete in photoshop, it works a treat.
Honestly believe me when I say you won’t believe just how much time you can save by grounding yourself in Illustrator for line work, it might seem weird at first drawing the shadows and inks as opposed to freehand, but once mastered it saves a tremendous amount of time.
Mr. Denham, while we are patiently waiting for the AI files you said you would post(hopefully you can post them soon) I had a few questions on the talent process at Marvel. How do they usually commission you?Are you allowed to distribute any of your work as a pure AI file or does Marvel own all the rights and you cant do that?Is getting a percentage of the sales a usual thing or is that a special deal and the artists only get a flat rate?
As an artist yourself who struggles to meet deadlines, can you shed some light on why some of the most biggest, puffed up names ie(Mcniven, Hitch, Kubert…etc) can’t put out work on time ever and yet still get paid boogo bucks while awesome consistents like Gary Frank are usually sitting around waiting for work?(I’m a big Gary Frank fan myself since his Incredible Hulk days)
Are you the only pro you know using illustrator to bring comics from a sketch to a full black and white product?
Ludders–
DUDE! I responded to your letters so quick we exchanged 4 in 1 day on many occasions. I should post those responses as a good FAQ post as they may help other people. If you wrote me on deviantart or myspace I responded plenty. Sometimes those posts would not go through as I have people get really pissed that I did not respond when I did.
Thanks for the kind words about the blog!
Slaydo–
If you reread my post, I mentioned I would post the Illustrator file online after my deadline. So I still have a few days to go. And remember this is a tutorial site for black and white comic art. If you want to know how to color there are other sites for tutorials on that.
As for the rest of your post I will not respond to it.
Understood.
But Ludders, if you have some AI files that show the various stages of your work flow, could I get those from you? Even though we’re waiting for Mr. Denhams filesalready, I can never get enough study materials. So feel free to send them to me at ultramillennius@yahoo.com
Man, alot of people seem to be able to take up learning illustrator and bring it to a finished black and white comic. I wonder why I’m having so much trouble doing so. I’ve been at it 8 months and I don’t seem to advance. Maybe I expect too much too soon.
Hi Slaydo,
I would be happy to send you one of my files but there isn’t really a lot to it. Normally I do a really quick layout on one layer, then buildup on another layer some tighter pencils and add some very basic shading. Then on another layer I may start to ink the foreground whilst reserving another for the background. If I’m feeling really flash I’ll add greys as highlights/shadows, but it depends on the sort of look you’re going for.
But TBPH I learnt all of this from Brian’s site (and annoying him by email). I’d say the key is to get comfortable with the pencil tool first and using shapes to create what would normally be traditional ink.
On a complete sidenote I also use the brush for some parts, just little bits here and there, but my work ain’t a patch on Brian’s.
But sitll if you wan’t the file the offers there, just let me know, I’ll even narrate it with some notes
All the best.
Another way you might achieve this in Illustrator is to activate the “Navigator” panel (in the “Window” section of the menubar) and just resize that panel to however big you want it. The Navigator panel will give you the full page view; the only real negative I see would be the box that shows you the area you’re zoomed into… but you can adjust the color of that box to something less innocuous in the panel’s options. Does that make sense?