calling all lateral-g artists for a chat

[JayR]

Thanks for the love, guys. Glad to call you both friends.

Before those of you reading start rolling your eyes, this is what it's all about. Competition breeds business and if you're comfortable in who you are and believe in what you do, you can be friends with guys you compete directly with and it makes the industry a better place.

[mlomaka]

Thanks for all the comments. This is realy good stuff. I am so glad to see how everyone knows one another & gets along here. As stated many times, you are all talented and I am encouraged by your attitudes. No battle of egos. I would enjoy the opertunity to meet with any of you guys if I would get the chance. Thanks for the encouragement (even if some of the links are "how to draw".- I know, always room for improvement! I'm working on it!).

[mlomaka]

While we are on the subject, for those of you who do them by hand, how do you scan them in so they look good? I have tried different scanners and settings, but I loose a lot of quality when I scan.

[Hdesign]

I usually draw the car out on 14x17 and have to scan it on my cheapo flatbed scanner in pieces at 300dpi. Once I have 3-4 sections in PS, I create a new file that's 16x20 at 300dpi. I drag each section into that file so they are on separate layers and rotate them into alignment with each other. Then I merge the layers in to 1 and desaturate it to enure that it's all black. The key is, again, good linework that's visible.

[Yard Dawg]

Here's an example of one that I did a while ago. (it's the only one I could find where I still had the original sketch)

It's a bit more on the "cartoony" side. But you can get the idea of the process anyway.



I do the sketch on whatever size it ends up being. (sometimes I end up taping letterhead sheets together if it runs over) Then I take the scan into Illustrator and trace the sketch. You can then take the vector lineart and scale it to ANY size you prefer! I then open that in Photoshop, place it on a "master line" layer that is locked. Then do my color layers below that.
(hope that makes sense!)

Not saying that this is the best way, just the way that works the best for me at the moment.
But, I am always open to hearing other techniques!

[mlomaka]

Thanks for the replys. I really appreciate the visual Yard Dog, and will refer to that when I try going digital. I think I needed to be a little more clear on my question. I am not digital yet, so I am having problems scanning in finished work done by hand. Below is an example. I guess it looks OK, but it is missing something from the original. I don't quite know if I can put my finger on it. It is something in the color. It seams to miss some things but emphasizes other things. I just am not sure if it is my equipment or settings or if it is just the nature of the beast.



The funny thing is that the way I do it by hand is really close to how I have seen it done digitally. I do my first sketch, sometimes a cleaner second, then use that one for a pattern for the finished one. Yet another thing that leads my thinking that I need to try to go digital.

Thanks again for all the information guys.

[city_ofthe_south]

Just from a quick look I would say it is your resolution. As Ben said, you'll want 300dpi, no if ands or buts so be sure you've got that covered. If you're having color problems then you'll want to play with hue/saturation in PS. Image> adjustments> hue/saturation. There are other options that are fun under image> adjustments, like brightness/contrast. Each scanner works a little differently but I would just look for those cookie cutter settings that are most likely built in and pick whatever sounds like the best it's got. On my scanner there is a "best color photograph" ... well that sounds like the coolest setting she's got so that's what I use but I always scan at 300dpi. Your PS file then needs to be 300dpi also, and you might also be sure that your scan is being saved as a file such as jpeg or tiff. Once you've got that you might have to make the choice of using CMYK or RGB. Uh, those aren't exactly digital terms so you might know what they mean? I use CMYK. I was sort of a press printer in school so we used CMYK. Your printer will use CMYK and so on. The web and your monitor like RGB. Uh to be real honest, unless you're hard core glossy magazine editor extraordinaire then just use whatever you want. There is some conflict when it comes to print if you use RGB but 9 times out of 10 you aren't going to run into problems. My only suggestion is that whatever you use, use it in everything you do - scan, Photoshop, Illustrator, whatever. On a side note, I have to do the scan in parts thing too ... just the nature of not being able to afford a giant fancy pants scanner. It works fine. I don't keep my line art in my final, so my digital camera works even better, except it's not in CMYK and I have to change it, oh well. It doesn't have NEAR 300dpi kinds of resolution so that might not be feasible for what you're looking to do. If you're getting into 7 or 8 mega pixels then yeah, you should be alright using a camera. It's quicker than scanning. *shrugs*

[city_ofthe_south]

a bit more looking, sorry. I notice that the Camaro logo was likely a web image that you used? It gets the jaggy edges from being very low res for the web. However, the car looks pretty good so I might have done a lot of typing information you already had. I don't see any issues but I don't have the original sitting in front of me either. It's good that you have that picky eye but you end up having to let it go at times because so many things come into play. Your monitor not being the least of your worries. It might look one way on your screen and totally different on mine. I can tell just from the black screen at home that neither of my monitors show me things the same. I keep one real contrasty and one real crappy and then compare images on them to see how "most" people will view them (because flat panels tend to come from the factory with no frickin contrast). You gotta basically find a happy medium in digital art for this reason. Plus the RGB and CMYK thing, print vs web or on screen. Your color settings in the software you're using ... blah blah blah. Everything is more or less working against you and you gotta shuffle it all into the "pretty good" category. Or pick a focus. No doubt everyone here is most concerned with how the final, printed image is going to look to the client, so create your artwork to that end. Having a pretty nice little printer to print test copies can help with this. I also choose my colors from a Pantone book so I know what they look like before I ever print. Which is another reason I use CMYK.

[mlomaka]

Hey thanks! I realize I was going the wrong direction as far as resolution. It makes sence now that I think about it. At home I have scanned them in at 600 dpi, and those look terrible. Here at work I have scanned them in at 400 dpi and they look better. I just thought it was the format (PDF versus jpg). I will definatly give that a shot.

Oh, yes the name tag is from the net. That is about as hi tech as I have gotten digitally.(LOL) The logo is new and I am not happy with the result of that either, but this was a gift to someone. About all I do to my drawing digitally is erase all the specs from around it and sometimes add highlights.

Thanks again for the help!

[city_ofthe_south]

Originally Posted by mlomaka

Hey thanks! I realize I was going the wrong direction as far as resolution. It makes sence now that I think about it. At home I have scanned them in at 600 dpi, and those look terrible. Here at work I have scanned them in at 400 dpi and they look better. I just thought it was the format (PDF versus jpg). I will definatly give that a shot.

Oh, yes the name tag is from the net. That is about as hi tech as I have gotten digitally.(LOL) The logo is new and I am not happy with the result of that either, but this was a gift to someone. About all I do to my drawing digitally is erase all the specs from around it and sometimes add highlights.

Thanks again for the help!

higher resolution shouldn't cause you any more problems. i hate to lead you the wrong direction so now you've got me wondering what's up. If you're scanning an image and then bringing it into a new PS file rather than manipulating the scanned file itself, then I would make sure both files are the same format and resolution ... or that your PS file is no lower than 300dpi. Always keep in mind that monitors as well as color settings from machine to machine are going to differ slightly at the very least and some times significantly. If (and i say if) you opened 3 files, all exactly the same resolution and all RGB or CMYK - one PDF, one JPEG, one TIFF - they really should look more or less the same on screen in PS. If you move these files between programs and computers, then yes they could look different, but nothing drastic I shouldn't think. I would definately play with the scanner presets and find one you like or one you can work the best with.