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As the subject line says, who is creating 40K art (any medium), how do you go about it, and what tools do you use?

I'm curious because I'm just getting back into drawing again after about a nine year break. I'm using a Wacom Bamboo Fun (which is small) with Corel Painter Essentials 4 (the stripped down version of Corel Painter).

I put this together for fun. Now I've got the bug to do a few more comics.



I would especially like to know about about types of Wacom tablets and different types of software as well as special effects added with Photoshop etc.

So who else is creating or has already created something for 40K?

I don't do any 40k fanart, but I do a lot of drawing with a tablet.

I use a Wacom Intuos 4 (medium), and it's fantastic to use. Once I got used to it, I actually found that I prefer it to drawing with pencil and paper.

Not 40k artwork, but here's an example of a WIP I've been working on with my tablet.


I find that one of the most useful things about working digitally is that you can spend a lot of time sketching out intermediate aspects of the image with layers, and that you can do a lot of alterations to the scaling and positioning of individual elements of an image very easily.

But first and foremost, you need to stop using comic sans.

Nice freehand.

What program do you use?

I've heard good things about the Intuos 4. Basically that it is the right balance of size, capability, and price for most users.

Why don't you like Comic Sans? It's clean and readable.

I just use photoshop.

As for comic sans, it's simply one of the worst fonts ever made, up there with papyrus. It's horrendously ugly and rarely ever fits the subject material that it is meant to convey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Sans#Opposition

Lots of people hate Comic Sans for whatever reason. I'm indifferent to it... it's a font, I don't find myself getting passionate about something so trivial.

I won't read anything written in comic sans.

Two summers ago, one of my bosses had this thing for using comic sans. Needless to say, there was a break in communication right there.

I use my keyboard, Microsoft Word, and my brain, although the latter has been acting up recently...

I use photoshop yet my attempts always come out just bad.

Fafnir wrote:I just use photoshop.

As for comic sans, it's simply one of the worst fonts ever made, up there with papyrus. It's horrendously ugly and rarely ever fits the subject material that it is meant to convey.

Andilus Greatsword wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Sans#Opposition

Lots of people hate Comic Sans for whatever reason. I'm indifferent to it... it's a font, I don't find myself getting passionate about something so trivial.

I can understand not wanting to use it for textual presentation other than comics but it seems OK for normal comic dialogue. As for second worst font ever, I think you are exaggerating for comic effect. I've worked with a lot of print fonts and many are simply undeciperable and therefore fail to communicate anything.

Avatar 720 wrote:I use my keyboard, Microsoft Word, and my brain, although the latter has been acting up recently...

What do you use these for in terms of 40K art?

AtomicEngineer wrote:I use photoshop yet my attempts always come out just bad.

I haven't tried Photoshop yet. My wife has it on her desktop. Is it easier to use for drawing standard shapes like circles, lines, and polygons?

Your comic seems OK to me. What don't you like about it?

JB wrote:
I can understand not wanting to use it for textual presentation other than comics but it seems OK for normal comic dialogue.

Dave Gibbons, one of the artists who's lettering the font is based on, noted how ugly the font is. There's a reason why you never see it used in professional comics.

As for second worst font ever, I think you are exaggerating for comic effect.

I said up their with Papyrus, not second to it. I'd rate both equally in terms of how horrendous they are.

I've worked with a lot of print fonts and many are simply undeciperable and therefore fail to communicate anything.

And those are bad fonts. But they aren't as terrible as comic sans because no one actually tries to use them.

Fafnir wrote:

JB wrote:
I can understand not wanting to use it for textual presentation other than comics but it seems OK for normal comic dialogue.

Dave Gibbons, one of the artists who's lettering the font is based on, noted how ugly the font is. There's a reason why you never see it used in professional comics.

Hmm...don't professional comics have letterers to do that? I wouldn't expect to see Comic Sans in any professional work because professional lettering is easier on the eyes just as human drawn art is easier on the eyes than computer drawn art. Our brains like the extra variation.

I don't have a professional letterer and I'm not that good at it so I'll use a standard font like Comic Sans, Arial, or Cambria. Believe me that it will be easier on your eyes than my hand drawn lettering.



Anyone else making art out there?

JB wrote:

Avatar 720 wrote:I use my keyboard, Microsoft Word, and my brain, although the latter has been acting up recently...

What do you use these for in terms of 40K art?

Writing.

I'm abit more old school, I still use a pencil and paper, IE;

I do use Paintshop Pro 9 to clean them up abit, IE;


Just some before and after pics,

Andilus Greatsword wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Sans#Opposition

Lots of people hate Comic Sans for whatever reason. I'm indifferent to it... it's a font, I don't find myself getting passionate about something so trivial.

Tell that to a graphic designer. Fonts are incredibly important, and the average audience member doesn't really know on a conscious level what they're looking at with a font. The right font can convey an emotion that fits with the mood of the piece, whether it's a comic, book cover, poster, or what have you.

EDIT: Actually saw this today, it illustrates my point pretty damn well:

A world with that much Comic Sans is not one I'd want to live in.

AtomicEngineer wrote:I use photoshop yet my attempts always come out just bad.

Just having a good program does not make one a good artist. There are people out there who can make outstanding artwork with MSPaint. It's all in how good the artist is themselves, and what tools they're using. For good digital art, a tablet is necessary, outside of a few rare cases. Beyond that, it's pretty much up to the artist.

Personally, I use Flash for all my Dawn of Awesome cartoons, and any actual animating I decide to do. I use Photoshop to do character sketches and stuff as well. I use an inexpensive Wacom tablet that I was able to pick up from Amazon for about $90. It helps that I went to college for animation, and I had experience drawing before that.

Thats the weird thing I can draw (atleast i think so) and do it frequenly its just as soon as i try to do a funny comic all the skills go out the window lol heres some of my other work:

Ribon Fox wrote:I'm a bit more old school, I still use a pencil and paper.

I do use Paintshop Pro 9 to clean them up a bit

You draw really well.

I used to use pencil and paper and then scan the drawing so that I could use PSP to edit and color the comic. It took a long time to edit and color though which is why I prefer to draw on a digital tablet now.

As Fafnir pointed out, the ability to use layers is also a wonderful aspect of digital drawing.

On the other hand, I still like to draw on paper sometimes and I could scan the art and use layers to add color. It would be like using the old color screens on acetate for printing.





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AtomicEngineer wrote:Thats the weird thing I can draw (atleast i think so) and do it frequenly its just as soon as i try to do a funny comic all the skills go out the window lol heres some of my other work:

Seems like good stuff to me!

I especially like the lighting effects you used in the bottom two pieces.

Starting from paper is a great way to get going. Most of my drawings start on paper first, then I trace them in Photoshop or Flash with my tablet.

Avatar 720 wrote:

JB wrote:

Avatar 720 wrote:I use my keyboard, Microsoft Word, and my brain, although the latter has been acting up recently...

What do you use these for in terms of 40K art?

Writing.

And where do you post your works? Dakka Forums, Deviant Art, etc.?




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Brother SRM wrote:Starting from paper is a great way to get going. Most of my drawings start on paper first, then I trace them in Photoshop or Flash with my tablet.

It's still a great way to draw especially when I'm not near my tablet. I also like doing rough-ins on paper and then transfering them to digits. However, the more I draw on the tablet the easier it is to just do the rough in digitially. Then I can use layers quickly to try things out by varying spatial relationships and sizes.

It's one of those things that is very subjective, different for every individual.

BTW, where can we see some of your art?

I like working in paper for the portable aspect too - I've been intermittently sketching a nice Crimson Fist to ink and paint later in Photoshop.

JB wrote:
BTW, where can we see some of your art?

You can go to my portfolio site:
http://campbellmclaughlin2d.com/
It doesn't have everything I make though. I'll update it once I get some more artwork I really like.
I also post art regularly on my Tumblr: http://cam2d.tumblr.com/page/2
The first page is mostly screencaps from the Spider-Man cartoon, so I linked page 2

Wow! That's a lot of completed flash animations.

I really like the SRM Call of Duty 4.

Some of the ones with music won't play here in Germany. They follow some weird license agreement here called GEMA.

Brother SRM wrote:I like working in paper for the portable aspect too - I've been intermittently sketching a nice Crimson Fist to ink and paint later in Photoshop.

JB wrote:
BTW, where can we see some of your art?

You can go to my portfolio site:
http://campbellmclaughlin2d.com/

Cool, how did you make the website? I wouldn't mind making my own

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but there is a program called Paint Tool Sai that you could use. A lot of people who use it use it do anime work, but with a tablet and that program I think just about any artist could make something from 40k. My g/f uses Sai all the time and her stuff comes out pretty nice since she's gotten accustomed to it.

JB wrote:

Wow! That's a lot of completed flash animations.

I really like the SRM Call of Duty 4.

Some of the ones with music won't play here in Germany. They follow some weird license agreement here called GEMA.

I made a LOT of animations when I was in highschool. If you really dig my stuff you can watch a ton of em here:
http://battosai810.newgrounds.com/
Some are really awful, some just have my voice, like the Marshmallow Squad cartoons, and one just has my name on it for some reason. Keeping things on topic, I did make a 40k toon about 5 years ago:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/380633

AtomicEngineer wrote:
Cool, how did you make the website? I wouldn't mind making my own

It was a Wordpress template I bought, then a friend helped me put it together with my artwork.

JB wrote:

Avatar 720 wrote:

JB wrote:

Avatar 720 wrote:I use my keyboard, Microsoft Word, and my brain, although the latter has been acting up recently...

What do you use these for in terms of 40K art?

Writing.

And where do you post your works? Dakka Forums, Deviant Art, etc.?

Mainly, nowhere; it's either not good enough to continue with, or hasn't reached a point where it's worth putting up anywhere.

There are some bits here and there across the internet, some bits in the DF forum (a few contest entries there too), and the only ones on dA (link in my signature) are also hosted in the DF forum, and have been postponed indefinately.

Red Comet wrote:I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but there is a program called Paint Tool Sai that you could use. A lot of people who use it use it do anime work, but with a tablet and that program I think just about any artist could make something from 40k. My g/f uses Sai all the time and her stuff comes out pretty nice since she's gotten accustomed to it.

Is that program Shareware?

I wonder what it can do that the other programs cannot.

These days, just pen and paper. Someone was nice enough to get me a Wacom Bamboo tablet (CTL-470 model) but i've hardly touched it. It just seems far too.. unnatural. Of course, it may have to do with the fact that i can't get the eraser to shrink down to a reasonable size (it's always far too big for detailed work, and will sometimes randomly blow up triple the normal size and blot out everything that was there.) If I worked with it a bit more, I bet I could work around these things, but for now, i'm just sticking with old-school stuff. I use alot of nice india ink pens (faber-castell) so things still look proffesional.

loota boy wrote:These days, just pen and paper. Someone was nice enough to get me a Wacom Bamboo tablet (CTL-470 model) but i've hardly touched it. It just seems far too.. unnatural. Of course, it may have to do with the fact that i can't get the eraser to shrink down to a reasonable size (it's always far too big for detailed work, and will sometimes randomly blow up triple the normal size and blot out everything that was there.) If I worked with it a bit more, I bet I could work around these things, but for now, i'm just sticking with old-school stuff. I use alot of nice india ink pens (faber-castell) so things still look proffesional.

What program are you using? It honestly just sounds like you need to practice with the tablet. Your first few weeks are going to be awkward, but things become second nature before you know it. As for eraser size, that's something you can change in literally every art program available, freeware or not.

JB wrote:

Red Comet wrote:I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but there is a program called Paint Tool Sai that you could use. A lot of people who use it use it do anime work, but with a tablet and that program I think just about any artist could make something from 40k. My g/f uses Sai all the time and her stuff comes out pretty nice since she's gotten accustomed to it.

Is that program Shareware?

I wonder what it can do that the other programs cannot.

I don't think its shareware since I recall her using a free version before she actually got the real version.

I have no idea, but if anything you can look it up on youtube. There are lots of examples on there of artists using it I believe.

Brother SRM wrote:

loota boy wrote:These days, just pen and paper. Someone was nice enough to get me a Wacom Bamboo tablet (CTL-470 model) but i've hardly touched it. It just seems far too.. unnatural. Of course, it may have to do with the fact that i can't get the eraser to shrink down to a reasonable size (it's always far too big for detailed work, and will sometimes randomly blow up triple the normal size and blot out everything that was there.) If I worked with it a bit more, I bet I could work around these things, but for now, i'm just sticking with old-school stuff. I use alot of nice india ink pens (faber-castell) so things still look proffesional.

What program are you using? It honestly just sounds like you need to practice with the tablet. Your first few weeks are going to be awkward, but things become second nature before you know it. As for eraser size, that's something you can change in literally every art program available, freeware or not.

I second this! It's is really strange at first but the more I use the tablet the easier it gets and the advantages of using once I get past the rough in stage are huge. I get things rearranged and colored so much faster.

I don't use an eraser. I just give my pen white color and draw over the black color pixels wherever I don't want them. I tend to draw with about a 1.5 to 2 pixel size pen and then for corrections I use a 1 pixel pen.

I also found that I didn't like the default pixels per inch (72). I upped it to 200. It takes a bit more memory but the resolution was much more satisfying for me.

While going threw some backup files I found thise photoshoped image I made for some one. thes are real photos with models made to look like there ment to be there.







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