here is a little gem. Kind of the proverbial Lemonade from lemons. There is this strange thing my Mouse and Stylus do when they both want to be in charge. My computer starts bouncing between the position of the mouse and the stylus.

So as I draw in the PENCIL tool the lines are “echoed” and the computer draws the lines in the exact spot 3 times.

It creates these really weird effects as all the lines are still connected from one block of lines to the next.

The lines in BLUE in the picture show the effect in real time. I took a snapshot of the Screen so you could check it out.

The black lines in the background are the previous batch I made. This usually last for about 5 minutes so I make as many different lines and shapes as I can in the meantime. I used some of these debris patterns in Elsinore in some backgrounds.

As I start inking I place my working layers a few layers apart with a bunch of blank layers.

I’ll use the blank layers to try stuff out. I’ll create new texture effects, brushes if I want to overtax my computer, and I’ll create some gray coloring in the middle to see if I want some of my lineart in grey instead of black.

When I choose to create some of my black lines in gray I do so because it really adds some cool visuals and depth to the shot. They are also there as guide notes for the colorist if I have a specfic lighting style in mind.

This shot of the thing has a lot of small details I have added to play up his rocky structure. I notice at this stage that some of the grit looks a little too purposeful. I want more of a random real-world look to his rocks.

So now I’ll go in with the pencil and add some white effects. I’ll use one of the middle layers and draw some patterns with my PENCIL TOOL set to a WHITE FILL and a WHITE STROKE and a .01 STROKE. With some of my black line-art on a lower layer and some on a top layer this will create some interesting effects.

I’ll then place another layer higher than my black line art and do some smaller splattering of white to help break up the rocks.

Here we have some line art I would use everyday. Some of these lines would be used for hair or bricks or concrete or fabric folds in a g-string, you know, normal comic book stuff.

All of these lines were created using the info I told you in the last step. I have to draw the outline of these shapes with the Pencil Tool in order to achieve this look.

Take a gander at the lower image. These lines are the same as the lines on top, however I gave them an EMPTY FILL with a BLACK STROKE so you can see how sketchy my lines look. After I sketch out my artwork using a NO FILL and a .01 PENCIL TOOL setting I switch to a BLACK FILL and ink the lines.

If you click on this image for a closer look you will see a very pixelated jpeg. These lines are very smooth in Illustrator and just look a little distorted here on Al Gore’s internet.

The lines in the middle of the image that look like a real smooth brush are created using a reverse “j” looking line. Anytime you want a Pencil line looking like a brush I have noticed a “j” shape works well to achieve the look.

Why don’t I just use a brush? I noticed when I use a ton of brush lines my computer lags. My computer has a 200 gig hard drive and 512 memory. I must upgrade that. But for now the Pencil tool is a cheap alternative to Computer Memory.

Well looky ‘chere. We have finally gotten into the nitty gritty, meat and potatoes Pencil tutorial. The red line is the tracking path of the PENCIL TOOL as I drew the shape below.

I started with this shape as an extreme zoom-in of a small shape that could be used in a brick pattern on a wall, or a sweat bead on a manga character.

The purpose is to demonstrate one small drawback of drawing in Illustrator with the Pencil. You see how a shape that would have been one quick line with a brush has me drawing all the way around the shape to achieve the same effect with the pencil.

It takes a little getting used to, but once you can do this it will really pay off. It shouldn’t take more than a day or so to get used to drawing shapes like this and understanding where you need to do it this way and where you don’t.

One incredible benefit of Adobe Creative Suite 2’s Illustrator is you can use the paint bucket to fill some areas like this very, very quickly. I’m talking Quicksilver fast!

The very first thing you must do in order to draw comics in Illustrator is to change the PENCIL TOOL settings.

The default Pencil is nearly impossible to draw with. It’s even worse to try and draw fast with and fast is the name of the game when drawing comics.

DOUBLE CLICK the PENCIL TOOL icon in your tool palette.

A fly away menu will open and give you some settings to play with that look like this picture.

The .05 FIDELITY and 0% SMOOTHNESS settings are what I have found work best for me. Play around with them and draw with the PENCIL until you find what works for you.

It is Imperative to click the KEEP SELECTED option OFF. If you keep this box checked it’s very hard to draw with the Pencil tool to mimic a real pencil.

If you draw with the Pencil Tool and the Keep Selected button on then the computer erases each line you draw as you draw a new one.

I rarely use the PEN tool at all to draw in Illustrator. I find the Pencil tool does what I need and it’s a lot faster than the Pen tool.