Hey everyone,
Haven't done a process post in a while, so figured I'd do one this week for you guys.
This was my week to pick a character for
Comic Twart. I wanted to stick with the theme of Latina characters in comics, and was going to choose Renee Montoya but decided on Panda Delgado from Body Bags. She's not as noble a character, but I figured she'd be fun for the fellas to draw.
Anyway, everyone has been talking about using Google sketchup for things like guns, cars, building, etc. I know lots of comic artists use it, but it still always seemed like cheating to me. (I know, I know... a tool is a tool. I know it's NOT cheating. Chill!)
I've used it as a reference tool, where I'd look at the thing on screen then draw it. The same way you might use a photo. But I never just printed images of guns out to ink.
I have this big collection of toy guns for reference, and take great pride in the fact that I've always acurately drawn guns by hand. Just see my run on G.I. JOE. All those guns were all done by hand, using a toy as a model.
But I thought I'd give Sketchup a shot for the guns in this piece. So I penciled the art, and left out the guns.
Then picked a 3D model in Sketchup, and dropped them into the drawing after scanning it into Photoshop. After that I free-transformed the gun till they were the size I needed, and I drew the hands around it.
Then I converted it all into a light blue, printed it onto a new board, and inked it.
After that I rescanned it as line art, and colored it using Photoshop and a Wacom tablet.
I have to say, although I like the illustration on a whole, I'm not really happy with the Sketchup models. I mean, the models are fine as reference, but printing them out to ink isn't working for me 100%. It looks Ok, I guess, but in the end I don't think it saved me enough time to justify the cheat. I'm also just not crazy with the look of it. If I'd drawn the guns by hand I would have adjusted it, "cartooned" it up to fit the drawing more.
Still, it can be a valuable tool for anyone willing to put in the time to use it right. My personal opinion is that if all you're gonna do it trace the 3D models then you're going to end up with a dead drawing. Try to learn to draw this stuff, get a feel for how it should look,then use these tools. Cartooning can be done with any tool, but tracing is always bad.
Again, no diss to anyone using 3D models well. Some dudes have it figured out,and I tip my hat to them. They're the reason I tried this experiment out in the first place.
Best,
Mike