An Example of what Skecth Book Pro and an old M1400 can do ...

[TedRx]

Hey there Gang!

It has been a while but I have been busy with distractions like real life and a full time job ... and these days that is something to be thankful for, but I still manage to play with the Tablet Pc and I thought I would just share my latest piece as a reminder of what great technology the tablet pc is.

My final image was inked and colored completely in Sketch Book Pro freehand ... the only thing I wish looked better was the ovals and straight lines, but SBP 2010 will fix that. The only thing I used Photo for was the border and logo, EVERTHING else was done in SBP ... I mainly wanted to post this to show exactly how Skecthbook Pro and an old Tablet Pc like my trusty M1400 is capable of FINISHED work, not just Sketching.

I am also providing the original scan of my friend Edward Whatley's pencils so that it is clear where I started ... without his pencils I could have done nothing, but with them and my set-up, I made the finished project (inked, colored, bordered and logo'd) in under 12 hours.

Finished image:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3492/3458024512_9ac651feb8_b.jpg


Inks:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3255/3476231661_ea83ab9d46_b.jpg


Edward's original pencil scan that I worked from:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3592/3457204107_d9233e5484_o.jpg
Thanks,

Ted

[bozz]

thanks for posting that tedrx. what's the original/full size?
just wondering what you find to be the point of diminishing returns for clean work.

keep posting art. maybe we can encourage some more tablet folks to post here. i'll post something soon too.

[TedRx]

Diminishing return is ALL trial and error. It is VERY easy to get caught up in the ZOOM feature and put in alot of detail that essentially disappears when view at a reasonable size or printed out at production size. I think it is similar to working on 11x17 paper and then looking at the finished comic book page size of lees than 10x7 these days, eventhough the digtial zoom can make it worse (ie-lots of works for no real noticable effect when printed) but it is the same basic issue of creating at a size larger than the end "consumable" size. Scott McCloud once said the the reduction step actually makes his work look better than it originally was believe it or not. Basically I have found that the greater the size of the original, the cleaner the finished piece looks most of the time.

The size of the origianl image was drawn by my friend on 11x17 and then scanned in and emailed to me, to which i then use variable zooms in and out to get what line stroke and flow i wanted.

[bozz]

i meant the diminishing returns in regards to the file size and tablet performance.

at 11x17 300dpi i think the tablet would be chugging, no?

[TedRx]

ah ... gotcha now.

It really just depends on the program you use and your Tablet's Specs.

Sketchbook Pro is less of a Resource hog than Photoshop that is for sure.

Also, the one thing that is hard to upgrade on a Tablet is the CPU so if you have a good, relatively new one (2ghz+) plus 2 gb+ ram you should be just fine. I have a 4-5 year old M1400 that came in at 1ghz cpu and 512mb ram, but I have upgraded the ram to 1.5gb with a single 1gb stick add, but ram for the older machines is getting expensiver everyday .. one day i may go all the way to 2gb RAM if a sale hits.

But overall in SBP I can draw/ink as fast as I want with no problems, even at 11x17 and 300dpi ... but truthfully there is not much need to work it much beyond print size (10x7) and 300dpi. It makes for a samller file size and ZOOM makes up for the "relative" smaller canvas.

[Vanne]

wow! great stuff, just a quick question. Did you race the original initially or just scanned it and then inked it?

if you traced it? how does one go about doing that? cheers :)

[TedRx]

No I didn't "trace" it. I Opened the scan up in SBP as the bottom or background layer, dropped to transparency to the level I liked, and inked it in a layer above.

Hope that answered the question ... if not, re-ask