Types of pencils used to draw a map

[markem]

I use a single type of pencil - it is an architectural mechanical pencil from Staedtler. I use 4b (softest lead). I have a pencil sharpener that I bought back in the early 1970s and have kept ever since. For very thin lines I sharpen the pencil to a needle-like point and for wider I actually have two of these and the second one remains blunt.

But what kind of pencils do you use?

And as a second line of talk - has anyone ever seen the guy on PBS who uses what he calls his "Mighty Brush". He uses paint brushes that you would use on a house and he just uses latex paint. I watched in awe as he did a complete painting in about fifteen minutes. Mountains, trees, road, fence, flowers - the whole thing in about fifteen minutes. He also used a hot air blow dryer (ie: hair dryer) to help dry the paint faster. I wondered if he had any fears of the paint catching fire. It never did - but I always wondered.

[CaptainJohnHawk]

Most of my hand drawn work is created using Prisma-color pencils. I have the huge set that has every color they make it in. I use a very sharp tipped warm grey to sketch out lines and refine it with a a slightly heavy grey. then from there work with tans and light browns.
However as far as pencil types go I would use 8H or 9H to start, and then work over with 5H, followed by 2H. I rarely use pencil past the drafting phase. Most hand drawn work I create, I end up inking in with pen.

Also, that guy is crazy talented. I have watched his paintings in awe. I went to art school for four years, and we had someone who would paint in a similar style, and he would always draw a crowd.

[markem]

I tried painting with a "Mighty Brush". Most of the paint when on me and my surroundings. I think I was a bit too expressive. But my wife complimented me on my bluish skin color lightly sprinkled with dirt brown. "Sort of like a spotted idiot," was her quip before I liberally splashed her with paint. I think we threw those clothes out afterwards. :-)

[CaptainJohnHawk]

Haha thats brilliant. I watched Bob Ross paint for years, and one thing he would always laugh about when he did it was he would smack his brush back and forth on the easel to dry it quickly. I never knew why he laughed when he did this until I tried that technique myself and realized that it covers you in paint water.....still made me laugh though.

[markem]

I saw him once take a spatula (the thing used to smooth out the mud you put on to get rid of cracks between the sheetrock) and make terrific trees by just dabbing. It actually works! You can make great looking trees with a one inch or two inch spatula. It really does matter quite a bit that you not use too long of a spatula as you want the trees to be variable somewhat. It also makes it very easy to do straight lines. Since I'm a fairly large guy my hands will actually shake if I try to have too strong of a grip on something. I grew up trying not to break delicate things and now it is like an internal fight to not put too much pressure on things. When I relax though - no shakes. But when I'm painting my hand tires quickly from the above. I have a painting I started over ten years ago (Madonna and child). Never finished it. I mixed some really thinned out silver paint with blue to give the robe a shininess to it. Unfortunately, I ran out of paint, had no money, and just had to set it to one side. Never have gone back to finish it. To date, I've only done something like six paintings. My two brothers each have a painting by me. One is a Rolling Stones painting of a brick wall with the lips, teeth, and tongue and the words "Get Stoned!" spashed on the brick wall. My other brother has a painting done in 90% white. A glass vase on a table you see through a window. All of it done by building up layers of white oil paint until it is about half an inch thick. The vase is cut crystal and inside of it are the stems of flowers with a few flower petals at the bottom. The flowers are above the top of the vase. Nothing much. Originally I was going to do a shadow painting of a blacksmith. All you saw was the open door to his shop and his shadow on the open door. Sparks flew out of the door here and there and the glow of a fire lit the scene. Unfortunately I could never get the shadow to look the way I wanted it to look. So I eventually I just set it aside and did the vase. Which turned out to be very easy to do.

[CaptainJohnHawk]

Those sound like great paintings. Yeah I have always had trouble painting consistent straight lines with a brush. My teacher could paint them without a second thought. I always struggled with line thickness. The palette knife (spatula) really does a great job at that though. I used to paint backdrops for musicals and plays, and whenever I wanted to texture something like a tree, I would always dip a giftcard or something into a couple different colors I wanted to use and drag it across the canvas. It gave a nice, sporadic and un-uniformed feel to it all. I was really pleased with it.
Do you plan on painting maps and cartography to post here?

[markem]

Yes, I do. I realize I sound like a stuck record - but my main thrust right now is to get my computer back up and running. I don't know about Windows System 7 or 8/8.1 (or 9, 10, 5 billion and one or whatever) - but under Windows XP you can restore the Application Data for yourself and All Users (name of the folder) and then reinstall software. The reinstalled software will use the Application Data which makes things easier to restore/reinstall.

My maps are either terrific or absolutely terrible. I don't seem to have a middle of the road way of doing things. So things look really cartoonish or distorted or they come out nice. Not photographic (like Boris paintings) - but usable. Sometimes things come out really nice - but usually it is just usable. Recently I starting using Visio for doing my maps. This has meant me not drawing myself but using icons or images (like from CC3). Which doesn't bode well for my drawing skills. But at the same time I have been able to produce some really nice maps. I'm planning on posting the map of Japan (or rather a part of Japan) as one of the first ones I will post. I'll have to take a screen snapshot because the map is something like 300MB in Photoshop (as a PSD file). The map was printed on a banner (3' x 4'). Then I just have hand drawn maps as well as more Visio maps. I was trying to move all of my maps into Visio.

Then I bought the Adobe Master Suite which had Fireworks. Fireworks is a lot like Photoshop in that you can have any sized files and only what you can see is in memory. The rest is swapped out to the hard drive. I've got some really large dungeons and so I was really beginning to wonder if Visio could handle them. Or another example is Cloud City (Home of the Storm Giants in my game). I tried to just do the wall around the main city and Visio croaked. The wall sections consumed all of the memory in my computer (I have a 32bit system with 4GB in it). Visio just eats memory for every non-vector item you have in it.

Anyway, yes. As soon as I get my system back up I will post some of my maps. Nothing fancy. And I want to finish the hand drawn map with the trees bracketing the map. See what I can do with that. I have a scanner so I will eventually scan it in. :-)

[CaptainJohnHawk]

That is great! I used CC3 for a long time and it could never hold up on my system. It always crashed while I was trying to save maps.
I really enjoy using GIMP 2 for some work, and it has some great features for being a free program.
However lately my efforts are 100% photoshop and an artist tablet.
I will be excited to see your work up here. There is a group of people here who devote their time to hand-drawn maps. If pulled off correctly, looks really incredible. There are a couple featured maps on the website that are hand-drawn and they blow my mind with the amount of detail and effort put into each piece.
I really want to add a handdrawn map soon, but I always find it easier to photoshop and tablet my work. I am spoiled by tech at this point.

[markem]

I have a tablet also but usually just use the tablet to hold my paper! :-P

I tried using the H series of leads but found them to be way too hard for me. I like the fact that I can press a little harder and get a darker, richer line. With the H series of leads I just felt frustrated because most times I just couldn't make out what I had done. What I usually wound up doing was punching a hole through the paper. Not so with the softer lead.

I do want to get a Watcom tablet. I've been told that it is the king of the tablet industry and even the small tablets are far superior to any other kind of tablet. I'm thinking maybe a 5"x8" tablet would be good. What size do you have?

[CaptainJohnHawk]

I really enjoy Wacom products. I was able to use a Cintiq for a little while at an old job, and it was sooooo nice. However they run about $2000-$3000. I currently use just the basic Bamboo, but have my eyes on a Cintiq Hybrid. It is a HD screen tablet that you can use as an additional screen on a computer (to draw directly), and you can also unplug them and take them on the go as a transportable artist tablet.
They look incredible, but still cost $1200. So it's a decision I have to think on.