Pen, Paper and Photoshop

[MrJokee]

Hello there,

This is my first official post outside the new members forums so I'll keep it fairly brief.

I am fairly proficient in Photoshop. I use it in my line of work, that being magazine layout. I use many of the tools, layers, clipping masks, all kinds of stuff, but all day every day, I use those to edit photos, create textures and backgrounds, but never draw. I am finding it an incredibly difficult thing to drawn in Photoshop.

There are two major issues that I run into.

1. Precision motor control through mouse.
I have a great mouse. Precise and responsive, but when I try to drawn, I find it impossible to do precisely what I want.

Solution to this would surely be a draw pad but to my understanding, they are expensive so my question is. Are there any pads that any of you would recommend that aren't expensive? And if not, or if our ideas of expensive differ, what other possible solution is there to this problem that you can think of?

2. Orientation in workspace
I find it difficult to know where on my work sheet I am. When I zoom out to get the grand detail, I lose detail in drawing, and since I'm drawing a continent size map, that detail loss is dramatic. On the other hand, when I zoom in, I lose the sight of where I am and therefore can't drawn exactly that I need to.

Now, the solution to this would certainly be to draw a zoomed out coast line as a rough path of where it should be, then zoom in and go over it and add details. Am I going in the right direction here?

Thanks for any help,

Unless I can sort these two issues out, I will have to stick to a good old fashioned paper, pen and ink, or pencil...

[Chick]

You can get very workable inexpensive tablets that are just fine for this kind of work. Just go to Amazon and search on "drawing tablet" in computers, and you will find plenty of choices around $50-100. Once you have made your 5th post so you can send private messages, feel free to PM me and I'll give you what info I have on brand choices.

What you suggest for problem 2 should work fine. I draw a general shape at the high level, then make a second layer to zoom in and redraw it in finer detail. I do the same thing for regions such as mountain ranges or forests ... outline the area in a simple grey or green, then zoom in and do the actual mountains or forests on a new layer on top of that. Then erase your planning layers and you have it

[MrJokee]

Thanks. I will try to get a 5th post asap to PM you. I was looking at Amazon but I've never really even seen a drawing pad so I don't know what to look for. I'd imagine a thing like precision tracking of the pen and such, but brand wise, I have no idea. I looked at Amazon before but wasn't sure what to get. To borrow my dad's saying, I'm too poor to buy cheap things. I don't want to drop $2000 on an elite drawing pad, but I don't want to buy something that's useless outside of child's doodling.

[Larb]

With regards to 1) I have heard that Monoprice make decent, cheap, drawing tablets. I have not used one personally though so I don't know how it compares to my bamboo or intuos 4. I've also seen some Huion tablets with decent reviews, and also Hanvon make good tablets but those seem to be more Wacom prices.

The Wacom Bamboo isn't all that expensive though and it is good.

2) I think it'll just take practice/getting used to. I know when I am drawing I am constantly zooming in and out via hotkeys. I do usually draw out a basic sketch of whatever I'm doing in a light grey first though.

[MrJokee]

Right, as with everything. Does anyone actually do their maps with ink and pen? That's something I'm trying right now. It's kind of difficult cause, one mistake and whole map gone, but at the same time, it looks pretty sweet.

[Midgardsormr]

There are a couple of threads around for real hand-drawn work. Delgondahntelius (I probably didn't spell that right) made a nice tutorial on the topic a long time ago.

[Ascension]

Drawing tablets are worth their weight in gold and should be valued as such. I got the Intuos 5 medium a couple months back and it cost $350 US. As soon as I ever have $2,500 laying around I'll get the Cintiq monitor/drawing tablet. I might just marry it as well. The zooming in and out thing - we all do that. It never gets easier. zoom in zoom in zoom in zoom in, draw a line, zoom out zoom out zoom out.

[Larb]

Some years ago I picked up this tablet from a brand called Trust. It only cost around $35 (it was cheap enough that I bought it on impule and curiosity) and came with some software called Artweaver. It was fully functional and performed pretty well. It had a big drawing area and it had all these "hotspots" around the outside which effectively functioned as buttons/hot keys.

The downside was that it was battery powered. Also the drawing surface was hard glossy plastic, as was the pen nib (and I don't think replacing the nibs is a thing that was ever intended) so it was not very comfortable to draw with - at least compared to a wacom. I'd describe it as feeling like drawing on glass using a ballpoint pen. But it did work really well - I was quite impressed with how it performed though I still much much prefer my intuos 4.

I've always wanted a Cintiq but someone here on the forum who owned one once said it took a lot of getting used to because there are 3 or 4mm between the where the pen touches the screen and the actual display which makes it feel weird if you're not looking at it directly on. Right now though I am enthralled by the idea of having a Cintiq Companion.

[MrJokee]

Hey thanks guys, I will get a cheap-ish non screen one for now to learn on it, meanwhile I will carry on inking and papering. Its actually quite...elaborate work to be on a deadline where if you mess up, you done!

[Larb]

Some people here do their linework on paper and then scan it before doing the colouring and such in photoshop or a similar program. It is definitely a workable approach.