I'm curious. Where do you do your comic writing, or your comic artwork, sketches, thumbnails, come up with concepts?
I find it easier to write when I'm out and about. At a cafe, at the beach, traveling on a bus or train…
I do more drawing on my Galaxy Note tablet now than ever before, which is very potable. Still, most of my drawing is done on the couch in front of the TV because drawing in public in anoying- I hate having people look over my shoulder.
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Comic Talk and General Discussion *
Best spaces for creating? Where do you do your comicing?
I find it easier to write never. I'm a terrible writer.
As for drawing, I find I really like to get settled in before I start so I don't do a lot of detailed artwork when I'm out and about (doodles are a different story - I do those all the time, everywhere). I don't even like drawing outside of my room very much. I'm the kind of person who likes to sit down with a single task for hours on end (i.e. I'm not a good multitasker) so I find distractions to be very frustrating.
I also use my tablet for drawing, but usually colouring is the only bit I do in public. I find colouring to the easiest and most fun part of the process, so I don't really mind doing it in bits and pieces or even with people talking to me.
best space for drawing? Outer space. that vacuum and emptiness puts me in a creative place I cannot touch.
I do much of my writing on my phone using a note pad app.
some on my computer, but I don't script that thoroughly. I have a galaxy note for drawing but haven't really made the best of it, yet.
out of interest ozone what app do you use for drawing?
Most of my art is done at my computer desk, I have a duel monitor setup, on for netflix, the other for art.
I have a lap desk, so I usually draw in bed with the TV on. Once I have my drawing done, I scan and switch to my computer (same lap desk).
Writing and brainstorming are entirely different from drawing. I usually come up with ideas when I'm traveling or at work (I work summers in parks; ideas come to me when I'm walking trails and stuff like that). For that reason, I carry a notebook or loose paper and a clipboard wherever I go. Inspiration comes in patches and out of order, so I write whatever I think of and assemble it later.
Hippie is right, I use Sketchbook pro. It's not as smooth as it used to be, but I think that's because of the later Android OS updates on my phone and tablet. It still works pretty great though.
It's not available now because they've made a new version that's aparently pretty laggy and you have to pay seperately for all the special brushes and things. It has some new features that'd be good, but if it has lag that's death so I won't even try it.
You might be able to get the older version of Sketchbook pro on pirate sites I think.
I do all my writing on my phone too. It's SOOOOOOOooo much easier than trawling through all my misc sketchbooks and notebooks for scrawled fragments of distconected, barely legable bits of text.
Funilly enough I EXACTLY recreated that process digitally, unintentionally, when I started thumbnailing and handwriting my story in the sketchbook ap on my tablet, so that for the latest chapter of Pinky TA I have to trawl through digitaly sketched images for fragments of poorly legible, scrawled handwriting. -_-
You can't take the moron out of the man.
Our house is very open plan, so I write/draw surrounded by the family. This does limit my productivity somewhat, but it does have the advantages of i) being fun, and ii) offering me plenty of material for my slice of life comic. It's also taught me to be focused, shut out the world around me, and write as fast as I can.
Most of my intitial work (drawing outlines and watercolor painting) is done while sitting at a recliner watching TV. It's a double recliner with a little section in the middle where I can sit a laptop for web referencing. I have a little setup to my right (a small table and some shelves) where I store most of my supplies. Been working for a couple years now.
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I do have a multi-compartment travelling pack that can hold most of my stuff so I can do most of the above away from home if necessary.
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Scanning occurs at a desktop computer in my house. This is also where I do all my writing. I don't do any writing prior to have a fully scanned page ready to go, then I just drop speech balloons in and come up with the text on the fly. Of course I already have a good idea what my text is going to be and where I'll place the speech balloons. For speech-intensive scenes that will cross several pages I may enter some rough notes Iusually in a text file) of the topics I want to be introduced in the speech, but so far I've done that just twice.
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I also carry around a notebook and a pencil to jot down ideas. As soon as I can though I type up outlines on my laptop. And then all the notes get jotted down in the margins. I'm always thinking.
Anywhere I can set up the laptop I work on the writing and the panel editing. I can draw anywhere as I carry around a selection of pencils, pens and will grab copy paper. For the photography it's all done on a butcher block table that doubles as my work bench. In the past it has hosted all kinds of sets, right now it is set up with light blue poster board backdrops. The current comic is being shot in bluescreen. The figures are strewn all over the floor with props and discarded costumes everywhere.
bravo1102 wrote:I'd love to see a wide-angle pic of your 'studio', if you ever feel like showing it!
I also carry around a notebook and a pencil to jot down ideas. As soon as I can though I type up outlines on my laptop. And then all the notes get jotted down in the margins. I'm always thinking.
Anywhere I can set up the laptop I work on the writing and the panel editing. I can draw anywhere as I carry around a selection of pencils, pens and will grab copy paper. For the photography it's all done on a butcher block table that doubles as my work bench. In the past it has hosted all kinds of sets, right now it is set up with light blue poster board backdrops. The current comic is being shot in bluescreen. The figures are strewn all over the floor with props and discarded costumes everywhere.
It seems a lot of you share some preferences; Watching TV while drawing, and writing in a public place. Isn´t that way too difficult? I used to watch TV and draw simultaneously, but over time I've come to realize that television is created with the singular purpose of forcing people to keep watching. Quick shots and bright colours follow each other in quick succession, making it almost impossible to stop paying attention to it for as long as you can see the screen, or even the light cast on walls and furniture. The same goes for the sounds of television, constantly changing, becoming louder and softer in rapid succession.
I´m just not smart enough to draw well and consume audiovisual media at the same time. So lately, when drawing, I just sit in an empty room or in bed. Not that I still do a lot of drawing, It turns out that I´m not as good at it as I used to think, and I don´t really have enough time to keep what skills I have sharp.
Writing is in my opinion best done on location. If you write about human beings drinking coffee, then go to a coffee shop (Not the Dutch kind). If you write about animals, go to a forest. If you write about war, go to a museum, or Iraq, or a primary school playground. I try to write daily, about all kinds of stuff, and I have gone to (among other locations) a church, a graveyard, a shopping mall, a park, a forest, a library and even a rooftop to write. In my opinion it just makes the things I write a little more realistic.
Of course live drawing is also better, but it takes me a lot longer to draw a horse than describe one; And writing about a horse does not require it to stand still, where drawing one does.
There is a nice functional area in my bedroom that is set up as a studio. Barely used it at all anymore.
Mostly, because of my work schedule I draw the roughs for any given page or artwork at work on very rough printer paper with pencil. Then ink it right over top.
When I go home in the morning I scan the images into the computer while waiting for breakfast to be ready.
Once on the computer inking is finished and then coloring. This is done either at home or at work on my laptop. A variety of software is used. I have an ancient copy of MGI Photo suite, Pain.net and a few others depending on what I'm trying to do.
One day I'd like to do all the art work in water color. Not really practical at the moment.
I carry a clipboard and stack of paper with me everywhere, and I make lists. At first they're lists of story ideas, and then plot outlines. Just a rough list of what happens in each story, or lists of all my future story ideas and what happens in those stories.
So I always have my clipboard, and I write stuff in the bathroom, in bed, at work, and in the car at a red light or whatever.
So that's the fun, messy, chaotic part of writing.
I draw (if one can call it that) at my computer desk or if there's some downtime at work. Usually it's different characters in different positions that I can scan and edit/stick together later. Sometimes I can draw while watching stuff online but usually I can't do both. I can play a podcast while I draw, but it's better if I can just focus on what I'm doing.
Then while I'm putting the page together on the computer I work out the dialogue. That's fun, and a lot of stuff gets changed in those few hours of compositing. I mean, I know where the whole story is going but there's a lot of room to fix/change things on that particular page.
In public I don't really draw or write - I don't like people looking at what I'm doing. So I guess the earliy stages happen anywhere and everywhere, with tons of paper, while all the refining pretty much happens at the desk.
Banes wrote:I now have an image of you in the shower with a clipboard, and my imagination isn't good enough to keep the clipboard in the right place to block things out … aaaaaargggh!
So I always have my clipboard, and I write stuff in the bathroom, in bed, at work, and in the car at a red light or whatever.
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