Adventures with Adobe

[sigune]

I have been delving into digital drawing lately. It's ... an adventure :-). I may have mentioned before that I am taking classes to learn about Adobe Illustrator. My original idea was to take an InDesign course, but the school advised me to take Illustrator first, so that is what I did. I had no idea what Illustrator was, though, so I didn't have any idea about how it might come in handy for me. (Wow, that sounds silly.)

Now that I have to think about the design of my webcomic site, though, I am beginning to see how I can put my newly-acquired Illustrator Skillz to use. Mind you, I can't do very much with it yet (I am only two months into the course), but it is beginning to be fun. And I am thinking that I may just be able to design some graphics for the site in Illustrator.

You can find my first experiment below. I made a design for the inside of Gawain's shield, which according to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight depicts the Virgin Mary. I thought it might be nice to have this image as a kind of emblem on the site, because Gawain's soubriquet of 'Ladies' Knight' can also be interpreted as 'Lady's Knight' or the Knight of Mary. To get an authentic-looking image, I traced the figure of the Virgin that appears on a page of the Book of Kells - partly in order to see if I could do it ;-). Well, I could:





Last Sunday, I also joined a webinar in which Dave Gibbons demonstrated Manga Studio. I have been thinking about getting Manga Studio and drawing my comics digitally, but so far I haven't made up my mind yet :/. The thing is that I am not at all sure that I will be able to draw digitally to my own satisfaction. Also, if you want to do it really well, you need a professional graphics tablet (from €600) and if you want Manga Studio with all the bells and whistles (including perspective guides), you are talking about a €250 investment.

I thought that I had better have a first try at inking digitally with the tools I already possess, just to see what it is like. So I took my Tiny Tablet and Photoshop and had a go at a sketch. Conclusion after my first try: it was pleasant, but my manual inks look SO much better. I freely admit that my lack of digital experience may have played a part, and I have to add that I didn't completely finish the picture either. But it is nevertheless clear to me that if digital inks are ever to replace my traditional ones, it is going to require BIG improvements.

I'm posting the digital thingy for your interest. Don't look if you don't want to be spoiled for my next Snape piece, a commission from the_winterwitch :-).

Comments

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

These look very good to me - and I am very curious about the last picture. ) Is there a story that goes along with it?

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Yes, there is - the_winterwitch is writing one. I did have a lingering interest in picturing Snape after his almost-death-by-snakebite, and that happened to fit in nicely with Alcina's own story idea.

More details soon :-)!