Drawing Programs

[on:]

Hey everyone,

I'm interesting in drawing futurama characters, but I need some help about which programs are the best to use.

Can anyone please help me?

Thanks,
James

[Reply #1 on:]

'drawing'... scan art, pc-drawing, or pencil-drawing-then-scanning-into-pc?

Whatever your preference, a recent versino of either Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop will come in handy. Open Canvas is meant to be a winner too, mind.

[Reply #2 on:]

Thanks, I already have adobe photoshop, but I might try paint shop for a trial to see if it's better or not

[Reply #3 on:]

 Photoshop's cool, but if you wanna trace the characters or a scene you have to go with a vector based program (photoshop's a raster-based program which means it's pixellated). 

So I'd go with Illustrator without hesitation.

Photoshop does have the pen tool, so you can do some vector work but illustrator revolves around that and, though it's a little tougher to learn, it's so much cleaner.  here's one site that explains the differences between raster and vector: http://www.nw-media.com/ps_intro/html/lesson_1/lesson1_pg3.html

[Reply #4 on:]

great thanks

[Reply #5 on:]

well, I find plain old pencil-to-paper it good, but if you have a tablet and photoshop, that's probably one of the best combos

[Reply #6 on:]

I've been working proffesionally as a graphic artist for over twenty-six years.
Didn't always have computers to work on.

I do almost everything in Photoshop.
Sometimes I pencil sketch on paper, scan it then ink and color it in Photoshop.
I do a lot of Illustrator based art at work and combine it with Photoshop art.
Corel Painter is really cool if you want to have your digital art look like traditional art (oil, watercolor, charcoal, etc)
Even if you do vector art with Illustrator, you still have to convert it to a raster based piece to post it.
It also helps a great deal to have a Wacom tablet with stylus.

[Reply #7 on:]

 

Originally posted by Cap'n Skusting:Even if you do vector art with Illustrator, you still have to convert it to a raster based piece to post it.

That's true, I just don't know who would want to free hand something you could easily perfect with bezier curves.  Come to think of it, though, illustrator's pretty crappy with gradients and highlights and stuff- it'd prolly be the most economical to outline it with illustrator then color that image in photoshop.

[Reply #8 on:]

Except for the background on "Spike" these were all done totally in Illustrator including the gradients.
You gotta learn how to use the Gradient Mesh.
Spike
Jet Black
Katerina

This one's not mine, but it's an ultra amazing example of vector art done to perfection:
Taya no hanami