Drawing with the iPad & iPhone

My final opinion came to fruition on this just last night, after weeks of experimenting.  The iPad and iPhones are great for what they were designed to do, as tools.  I own both and love them both, for what they do.  Drawing however, is not something they're good for, in my opinion, unless you've got a ton of patience and a whole lot of time.  I don't have an abundance of either, but I decided to give it a fair trial before placing judgement.  


My first obstacle was using finding a decent stylus pen that would work on my iPad.  Before I began the hunt for that, I made a drawing with it, using just my finger.  Mind you, this is just using the Penultimate app...nothing more.  (I'm aware that there's a lot of others out there.)  

It was just the first thing that popped in my head.  Nothing too extravagant.  It is after all,  a finger painting.  


After buying a stylus pen that was somewhat reasonable, I tried yet another drawing.  This time more detailed.  

The black lines and some color were all done with the iPad.  But here's the kicker, I got so frustrated with trying to complete it with the iPad, that I gave up, and finished the drawing's colors in Photoshop.  I spent all of about 10 minutes on the color in PS.  The app wasn't the problem.  The stylus pen was not the problem.  The problem was with the screen on the iPad itself.  Like the iPhone, it senses everything you touch.  Whether it's with your finger, or even your palm.  Most people I know rest their palm on what ever it is they're writing or drawing on, right?  (And yes, I did tweak the wrist protection settings.)  That becomes especially hard to control with lines and color you don't want in certain places.  You find yourself constantly erasing your 'palm marks.'  I'm not Rita Skeeter, and I can't write with my stylus pen by just waving my hand.  But I would like to be able to apparate.  Now, that would be sweet.  And a dragon.  I want a dragon.  A big scary one.  Anyway.  

Not willing to give up too easy, I decided to try it instead for just writing and taking notes.  I watched a 2 hour webinar last night on photography.  When the show got into some issues I wanted to write down as notes, I grabbed the iPad and started writing.  The same thing happened.  I had half a page of notes that were messy and had unwanted garbage all over the page that I had to keep erasing.  That lasted about 10 minutes before I literally just grabbed a real paper and pen, and continued on.  

At the end of the day, the iPad is a great tool and has its uses.  For me, drawing is not one of them.  I'll stick with my Wacom.  And my dragon.  While apparating.     

An Ant-Learn to Read - The Art Process Part 3 (HD Video)

Below is a brand new short video I made very recently.  It's time-lapsed to nearly 3X normal speed, but you can get a better idea of how using Illustrator can be effective.
  

Like anything else software-related these days, Illustrator has its uses.  And it's very good at it's own uses.  Illustrator is not Photoshop.  They're similar in a lot of ways, but different in just as many.  Photoshop is a raster-based application that's confined to the realms of resolution, as it should be.  Illustrator is vector-based, meaning resolution doesn't become an issue until the project goes to print.  That's the short, long, er, short of it.  Some of you may be thinking, I have no idea what he just said there.  I understand.  It took me years to get it too.  Try thinking of it in terms of HD Television.  In Photoshop, you can make your image [this big] in HD.  In Illustrator, you could take an image [that's this big] and make it billboard size, in HD, without losing resolution.  Make sense now?  Good.  Now we'll start doing astrophysics.  Let me grab my telescope.  

As mentioned before, it has its uses.  For my digital inking, Illustrator wins, over Photoshop WHEN I'm not having to create the drawing from scratch.  If I'm starting from the ground up with an idea that I need to sketch, Photoshop wins.  Photoshop is way faster, simpler, less clicks, less layers, less everything.  Now, you're wondering, ok, so which one does he prefer?  I'll give you my answer.  Both.  And I see it staying that way for the future too.  People have their own styles.  They have their own ways of creating things and using what works for them.  It's not predictable.  It's not foreseeable.  It's just the way it is.  

Next, we'll finally get to iPad art, and what I've discovered with it.  Stay tuned for more.         

An Ant-Learn to Read - The Art Process Part 2

It all starts with a company called Wacom.  I'm pretty sure they wrote the book on this and revolutionized the graphics industry ever since.  These tablets are used in illustration, photo-editing and countless other ways.  Chances are, if you think it might be able to do it, it already can.  These tablets are really, really, really great.  Why?  One word.  Well, two.  Production.  Fast production.  

Those of us who operate under strict deadlines every single day, know that time is short.  People want results and they want them fast.  Any edge we can get to combat this from day to day, helps.  These tablets help.  I  like help.  


Illustrators like myself in years past, and even today, grab a piece of paper and a pencil and start sketching.  They finish their sketch, maybe ink it, or color it, depending on the artist's style.  All with pencils, markers, fancy ink pens or whatever they want.  There's nothing wrong with doing it that way.  It's art.  You can create whatever you want, when you want, how ever you want.  

The next step would be to scan the work, make the appropriate crops, or other edits.  Then you can publish it online.  All this take time.  

Wacom Tablets work in nearly every application on your PC or Mac.  It's not a replacement for your mouse, but more like a supplement to it.  I have been known to use my tablet for surfing the web even.  My Tablet is actually tired and in need of replacement, as it is about 4-5 years old.  


In the children's book, An Ant - Learn to Read, all the inking and coloring was done digitally, using Adobe Illustrator CS4, with a Wacom Tablet and pen.  What people might not know also, is that all the drawings I did were also exchanged through email.  There was no paper involved at all.  My publisher would send me 4 drawings attached in an email at at a time, and I would ink them and send them back to her the same way.  I should mention that no scanners were harmed in the making of this blog post.

In the next post, I'll unveil a brand new video that I put together.  And I'll go into my review of using Adobe Illustrator - the good and the bad.  Stay tuned for Part 3.