
What tools do you use to sketch/draw and color? In both your traditional and digital art?
ART QUESTIONNN YES :D
-Digital-
I use Paint Tool Sai and Open Canvas for my sketches, but I always line in Sai. I have bad, shaky hands and arthritis... and while the smoothing tool is somewhat of a cop out I fully admit, it's ideal because it takes a lot less time to get those lines just right otherwise!
I want to give a tip to those who don't have Sai; Press correct in Open Canvas is a sort of smoothing tool, bring it all the way down to 6 for best results. I do like the feel of sketching in Open Canvas, but lack of rotation options and slightly better editing options keeps me sketching in Sai for the most part.
You may or may not have noticed, sometimes I skip lining altogether. I will simply change the color of my sketch and color it. Out of both laziness and I like the grungy feel of the sketch. Sometimes it looks
As far as coloring, I tend to use the selection tool and flat fill color in Sai and then color in corrections. Sometimes I will use multiple tones and such to shade and highlight. More than likely, I'll drag it over to trusty Photoshop and destroy it with duplicate layers with added gradients and filters.
I tend to favor the duplicate layer + Gaussian blur + overlay, halftone and adding line textures and distorting them.
I like coloring in digital the most because I can UNDO and also I can do so much more and can actually make things how they look in my head.
-Traditional-
I use an mechanical pencil with a 0.5 mm 0r 0.7 mm lead to sketch. Rarely, I'll use a drawing pencil for things I want to shade, but I usually don't shade until I color!
For lining, I use Sakura Pigma Sensei pens(or Microns if I'm out of Senseis.. I don't like these too much because I'm a heavy handed person who draws to hard and bends the nub) usually a 03(01 for microns).
Sometimes I will use Prismacolor Illustration Markers(actually pens) for lining and I also have a Staedtler Mar professional inking pen with tons of ink cartridges.
I erase the sketching bits with a Staedtler Mars Plastic Eraser or Sakura Block Eraser.
For coloring I favor Prismacolor in both marker and colored pencil. I do have a few Copic Sketch markers for colors Primacolor lacks, though. Like Yellowish Green, Mint Green, and Chrome Orange.
While I *try* to use Smooth Bristol for all my colored traditional art, a lot of the traditional stuff in my gallery was drawn AND colored in a Canson or Strathmore spiral sketchpad. Though recently i have been reminding myself to use the Smooth Bristol pad more often and it's turning into a sketchpad it's self!
I love the way traditional feels over digital. I honestly get bored coloring in digital, but traditional is very rewarding and fun.


