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Fun Stuff => MAKE => Topic started by: Daecrist on 10 Dec 2007, 06:20
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I was just curious as to what the consensus was on inking with the pen tool in photoshop versus just taking the time to learn how to do it freestyle with your tablet of choice. I've gone back and forth myself many times on the issue, and was curious what everyone else thought.
Both have advantages and disadvantages.
Inking freehand gives you a bit more freedom and allows you to take advantage of the pressure sensitivity on your pad to get a more "natural" look to the finished product (and by natural I just mean closer to what you might see with a real pen). The drawback to freehand is that it can take forever to learn how to do it, and Photoshop isn't a forgiving mistress when it comes to an unsteady hand
Using the pen tool gives you crisp clean lines every time, but at the cost of that pressure sensitivity. I suppose that's a matter of taste. Different pressures can be simulated if you mess with the controls a bit, but it's always been such a pain that I never bothered messing with it too much. Using the pen tool to get just the right curves can also take some getting used to, but it can be worth it to master the art.
I force myself to ink a drawing by hand on the first go as a learning experience. I figure that with enough practice I'll get it down, but I also usually wind up inking over sketches with the Pen Tool just to have something that looks cleaner. So what does the community think? Is the Pen Tool just cheating for people who can't learn to do it the "right" way with their tablet, or is it a useful tool for people who would end up wasting a lot of time trying to get things just right and never quite get there because of an unsteady hand?
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If you use the pen tool your drawings will look like they were made by a computer.
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The thing about inking freehand is that it provides you with an amazing opportunity to develop a steadier hand and an artistic eye. And Jeph's right--there's absolutely no comparison in terms of art quality. The pen looks terrible. Once you've done nothing but ink with the brush tool for about two weeks, it becomes second nature to draw a line, and if you hate a part of it, hit that handily-mapped Ctrl-Z key and quickly draw a better one.
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If you are going to use the pen tool, you might as well just install Illustrator. Then, you can get a pressure sensitive stroke that you can tweak like it was the pen tool, but much less shitty looking. Once you are done inking, then you could export to photoshop if you wanted.