About digital work...

[JohnnyBoyB]

This is my second question to you, Mr. Davis, and it’s from a comic artist wannabe to a comic master artist .

It’s regarding digital art. What do you think of it? Do you think it’s the future of comics? I’m asking this because very recently I’ve decided to go digital 100%.

Let me give you some background on me: I’m not into digital illustrations. I’ve seen some recent works where it’s clear that everything was done digitally, and the pictures looked stale, lifeless, inert. Sure, the colours where great and the effects were flawless, but it didn’t look like they were made by a human being, which really turned me off. There are some works out there that were coloured directly from scanned pencils, using photoshop and, for the most part, without the use of inking, they look like they used a box of crayons for the finished look of the issue. If that was what they were aiming for, fine, but frankly, I don’t think that was the case.

So why have I decided to go digital all the way? Well, I’ve been experimenting with some image processing programs, gaining some proficiency on them, and I have to say that the possibilities available now are almost limitless, which makes me feel sad about what’s been done by the publishers, lately . I’ve decided to try to give an old look to the pages, like it had been done traditionally, by a penciller and an inker instead of the new look that the digital pages seem to offer right now.

Using my laptop, I can work wherever I want, I can work with rulers and other tools which will make my perspective and panel work easier and faster. The available software right now allows me to simulate perfectly pencil and ink work. It’s also faster and for certain parts of the job, more precise. And, for me, it allows me to have a clearer idea of the overall look of the page.

This doesn’t mean that I have don’t need to know how to draw. I have to apply the same ideas and principles of shading, anatomy and perspective that I would have in a paper work. Not only that, but working with digital ink has given me some perspective and ideas of how a penciller should deliver a finished job, making it tighter and more precise for the inker. Even thinking about money, it may be a good thing – instead of paying a penciller and an inker, why not pay for a single person capable of doing both works? It’s cheaper for them, and more money for me !!

What do you think about this?

[Alan Davis]

This is a massive topic and ultimately a matter of choice.

I don't believe comic artists are artists with a capital 'A'. We're storytellers and entertainers. My definition of art is anything done to a degree of excellence-- so a comic can be art but very fewl comics are art.

By this same definition digital techniques can produce art but as you described, most is very artificial or just plain bad-- usually because the program is doing the work. I have had occasional rants elsewhere about the comic 'colourists' who think that digital gimmicks can make artless paint-by-number appear artistic. I don't believe anyone can model colour unless they can draw yet there are those (editors and readers) who are impressed by the colour-technicians limited bag of tricks. However, unless the reader has the opportunity to see comic pages in black and white or with better colouring they can never know what has been lost. To my way of thinking sloppy and incompetent digital colouring has destroyed a lot of very fine b/w artwork and lead to a serious decline in the quality of the comic medium.

[Guillermo]

If I can add something, I was years ago in the Gijon Comic Con when John Buscema and Sergio Aragones were guests there, It was one of the best weeks in my life, and the top moment for many of us was the conference of John Buscema.
John in his speech was talking about how his work in comic books, how hard he had been working, but it wasnt true art for him, because he thought that true artists were people like Rembrandt, and that he had to use his talent sometimes not in the best way.
But at that point, Sergio Aragones take the micro and starts a very fast conversation with john, asking him many fast questions about what was art and what not for Buscema, quests as: "Is N.C. Wyeth art for you? -Buscema: yes it is", after 5 or 6 of those questions, all of them with "yes" as answer, sergio asks "Is John Buscema art for you?"... Of course buscema falls in the trick, and he said "yes" before noticing what Sergio was asking. Thanks to that little trick among friends, Buscema finished what started as a bit bitter speech with a big thanks to everyone, people started to applaud out loud, and we felt that he felt some recognizement.

There are many people that keep thinking about comic books as a children thing, and even worse is when a great artist underestimate his own work because of them

[Row]

I agree that this is a massive subject. Art by it's very nature tends to be subjective to the individual viewing it.

Comic book art is a commercial artform, the artist is hired to draw... by the same token so was most of what we class today as classical art that's hung in galleries, the artist being hired to produced a piece of art by a 'client' . The exception to this in some cases was someone who would act as a patron or sponser for the artist, freeing them from the hassles of commissions and allowing them to create and develope.
Does this make comic book art 'Art'...yes and no, much the same way that 'Art' itself can be.....Tracey Emin's "Unmade Bed"....I'm sorry, but how is that Art? I could take the contents of my homes spare room and put it in the Tate Modern and call it 'Art'

Now, for example,"The Creation of Adam" by MichaelAngelo on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel was a commissioned work, but it's still for me a wonderful piece of renaissance art, because of the skills involved.....maybe that's the difference of what we call 'Art', the execution and the methods involved.

Maybe as Alan has suggested we attribute artistic merit to what we see as excellence in a given discipline, whether it's painting, sculpture, film making or even mathematics and science. As I've already said, art is very subjective to the person viewing it, and to me is something that displays the skill or talents of an artist to represent form and depth and emotion, along with a wanting to understand how they did what they did, the techniques involved, the process that lead to the final execution.

Comparing Digital art to tradional art is a very loaded question, if the digital artist is working from the ground up, using traditional techniques, but electronically ( drawing via a tablet, and layering colour via layers or mixing etc) then kudos to them, but using programs to shortcut and do all the hardwork is, in my opinion bad news....because the artist learns nothing, because the program takes care of it all, all the rendering etc.
For my own work, it's a learning process, everytime I draw I learn from it...whether the piece/page turns out good or bad.
I develope far more from my mistakes than my successes, my style and hopefully my skills grow and evolve, by using a ditigal technology to bypass that, I would loss out, sure I'd be able to get the images composition I'd intended, but the style wouldn't be me, it would only be a computer programs approximation of my style, the computer and countless art packages are simply tools to be employed, much the same way as a pencil, paintbrush or mallet and chisel, knowing when or if to use them is just as important as what they can do.

I'll actually stop there, otherwise this will become a 10,000 word essay, lol

[MiG]

This is a massive topic and ultimately a matter of choice.

I don't believe comic artists are artists with a capital 'A'. We're storytellers and entertainers. My definition of art is anything done to a degree of excellence-- so a comic can be art but very few comics are art.

By this same definition digital techniques can produce art but as you described, most is very artificial or just plain bad-- usually because the program is doing the work. I have had occasional rants elsewhere about the comic 'colorists' who think that digital gimmicks can make artless paint-by-number appear artistic. I don't believe anyone can model colour unless they can draw yet there are those (editors and readers) who are impressed by the colour-technicians limited bag of tricks. However, unless the reader has the opportunity to see comic pages in black and white or with better colouring they can never know what has been lost. To my way of thinking sloppy and incompetent digital colouring has destroyed a lot of very fine b/w artwork and lead to a serious decline in the quality of the comic medium.

Sorry for breaking into the thread here but I really must agree to this, if the talent is there then it'll show but mostly it is the software being used doing most of the work. Just because something looks flashy it doesn't automatically make it good, just flashy.

As a traditional ink artist myself I love seeing b/w pages and in many cases the coloring ruins it right off. Some artists have styles better suited for massive coloring what with an airy way of applying the ink lines and having almost no black spots in their artwork, like Geof Darrow for instance. But I still get annoyed at seeing parts of the ink itself being colored instead of letting the color be the complimentary addition to the page as it's intended to be. Therefor I sometimes appreciate reading comics colored the old way more ( back when the issues were made of something similar to toilet paper and really bad printing ), at least it didn't interfere with the ink in the way it does today. I want my comics to show the artist's talent, apart from the writer's story that's why I buy and read my comic books, for the art.

And yeah, there's a lot of comic artists today which I frankly don't give a damn about and put that together with an overtly obsessive coloring it makes for a fine moment of boredom so no, not all comic art is really art which is a shame since it's one of the greatet media there is in my opinion. Which is also why I appreciate the fact that there's a lot of the old school artists still working in the genre, whenever I pick a title up made by one you I know instantly that I'll be satisfied and in for a treat ( as I'm always are when reading something made by you ).

I read your reply to another post in here where you stated that there's people thinking that you don't have the same depth as the later generations of comic artists. Well, they're wrong, you have more depth than most in my opinion and the later generations would do well by learning from you and your peers since you know how it's supposed to be done. At least one of them have done so, Bryan Hitch. He's now developed into something more of his own but the influence can't be mistaken, it's a very strong Alan Davis style in there which in effect means you invented him

Sorry for the long winded post btw

[Alan Davis]

Don't get me started on the egotistical or thoughtless colourists who obscure black line art, MiG.

Thanks for your support MiG but when I said there are people who think that I don't have the same depth as later generations of comic artists it is a simple fact that tastes change and there is a vocal minority that want comics to only match their limited 'Mature' taste. I won't change the way I work because I only want to produce the kind of comics I have done-- and will do for as long as I can. Which really leads back to the comments by Guillermo.

I think you rolled together a few disparate points Guillermo but the one thing I would dispute with you is that “There are many people that keep thinking about comic books as a children thing…” I think the reverse is true. As has been discussed on many occasions elsewhere, the public perception of comics is that they are aimed at illiterate, low IQ or immature adults—and certainly NOT suitable for children.

While I don’t want to get bogged down in semantics, although I enthusiastically recognise John Buscema as a great comic artist because he has created exceptional comics, not every comic he drew was to the same extraordinary standard. This is not a criticism but, even though Buscema on a bad day is better than the majority of other artists on their best day, he was a commercial artist (just like Rembrandt!). The key to what art is lies in the difference of perspective between an artist and their audience. The true artist knows what it has cost to produce a work and, more importantly, they know whether they have achieved their goal. The majority of any audience has little idea of what went into any particular artistic endeavour-- whether it was the product of days of uncertain labour or born in a moment of inspiration—and that is how it should be. An audience either like or dislike an artist’s work because it makes some sort of connection—sometimes not one the creator intended. The problem is that an audience is composed of various types of people ranging from the ‘casually interested’ who are looking for entertainment to ‘rabid zealots’ who proclaim a particular creator to be more than mortal and incapable of producing ordinary or substandard work.
I don’t believe tools or techniques define an artist I believe it’s about vision and intention—this is an abstraction in itself which is why art is so difficult to define. I don’t believe Tracy Emin or Damien Hurst, are artists-- the later having been sponsored by Charles Saatchi an advertising mogul really sums up modern art to my way of thinking-- its all about the cult of celebrity and self promotion. Truly commercial art, perhaps!
Guillermo, you describe the event in your anecdote as a trick and I think that summation is appropriate. I don’t believe that John Buscema underestimated his ability or that he was bitter. From what I have heard drawing was as necessary to his existence as breathing. A real artist is in competition with himself—his mastery of his ability to express his vision through skill and technique. The ‘works-of-art’ produced are signposts that mark the path of development but are not an end in themselves.

Alan

[MiG]

I see what you mean and 'Mature' can be many things and not always as mature as it's supposed to be. I do appreciate that you'll never change your style, wouldn't be you otherwise As for competing with one's self, that's exactly why I create my own stuff and like John Buscema I also find it necessary to my own existence much like everything else that keeps me going, it's something I must do or there's not much point in anything in my life. Maybe when we create art art creates us back, who knows.

I do believe in what you said, the true artist creates for himself, to better himself in his work and push his own limits, always trying to get the best of himself. If you can make a buck out of it then that's a good thing but drawing or painting just to try to get 'rich' seems a bit too exploiting to me and I also believe it slows down your own artistic progress if not blocking it altogether.

A friend of mine also draw and paint but his goal is solely to make money out of it, my opposite in other words, and it shows in his work. He developed his skills up to a certain point when he started trying to make that buck out of it and then his work just got stale and it hasn't changed one bit over the last ten years or so. Now there might be other reasons for his lack of further development but for some reason I think has got something to do with his view of his own goal with his work. He always feel a little ashamed when I point this out to him but I think he also know what I mean when I mention it and sometimes try to make an effort but he's caught up in his own wheel of money- making work perhaps because he never get anywhere with it.

On another note; Do you have any small quirks when you work? Some artists do and my own ritual when flipping open a new sketch pad is to feel the surface of the paper with my finger tips. Perhaps preparing me for the piece I'm going to work on and if I have any new types of pens or similar which I haven't tried yet I get all tingly and excited Just curious

[Guillermo]

Well Alan, I think your corrections about what I say are right, and about the buscema story, Im sure that he was not bitter about his art or his skills, but maybe about what he did in comic book industry sometimes, the commercial part, as you say.

Probably I was not able to tell the story as it was, as you see, english is not my native language, but I am sure that Sergio Aragonés did something that night, maybe he didnt changed Buscema's mind, of course, but I think he made John Buscema admit in public that what he did in comic books was not minor art allways.

I think the anecdote was worth to tell here, not for what they said only, more because what some artists can feel about part of their jobs. The best artists I know in person need to draw all the time, and many of them arent happy with what they do sometimes, thats why they keep improving.

[JohnnyBoyB]

Hmm... Interesting post here. When I started this subject, I wasn't thinking about the discussion of whether or not a comic artist is a real artist. IMHO, it depends on the artist. I think the great ones are easy to spot.

Getting back to the original topic, I recently finished my first 100% digital work. Feel free to check it out on link below.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/55666010/

It's not quite there, yet! I've still to learn how to do the proper shading! I guess I could easily surrender to the endless pallette of tones and colors the software has, but frankly - it's not what I'm after. I really want to give an old style feel to the pieces I work on. I guess I have to study the works of some of the best inkers (Buscema, Adams, Giordano, Austin, Neary, and of course, Farmer), and perhaps even buy a book on inking.

All these difficulties make me feel at times fustrated, but ultimately on the right track. Because, if I'm willing to study inking to adapt it to my digital work, it means that I'm thinking by myself and that the program isn't seducing me - Thank God!

I'm still a better penciller on paper that on the digital realm... It's not easy to look at a screen, instead of looking down at what your hand is doing with the pencil. It takes time to get used to, and sometimes I wonder if I'm simply wasting my time.

But let's be honest here! The digital softwares out there have a lot going for them! I'm taking a college major in Civil Engineering, and we have to use a software for structures in order to create buildings, bridges, and whatnot. I have a teacher that keeps saying: "the software is great - almost perfect! If something doesn't work, it's the user's fault!" I think that also applies to the image processing softwares, like Corel, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. They offer so much that it's easy to fall to "the Dark Side" and forget about what you intended to do in the first place!

That's the bad part.

The good part is that you can do the same thing that you wanted to originally do faster and with less effort! I work with a laptop and a tablet, so this means that I can work anywhere now, whereas before I had to find a place with enough room for paper, rulers, pencils, etc. and since I almost could never find it, I'd always end up drawing only when I was at home, which was usually a time when I only wanted to sleep, or read a book, or simply relax. Now, I work a lot more, and my output is at least three times as much! Also - I hate to work with rulers! I don't know if I have a bad coordination or whatever, but everytime I work with rulers, either it is doing panel work, or perspective work or something else entirely, by the time I'm finishing somenthing with rulers, the parallel lines aren't parallel anymore, and the vanishing points moved an inch .

Finally, a point I mentioned previously: for me, it's easier to immediately have an overall feel of the piece, throughout its evolution, which sometimes is more difficult when you're staring at the tip of your pencil when you're working on the paper.

So I think if it's you using the program instead of the program using you, your style will show and ultimately won't matter whether or not if you're working digitally. But you still have to study and work to get any valuable work out of the software, just as you would from the traditional media.

[Alan Davis]

JohnnyBoyB, while I agree that the computer-- like any other tool-- has its uses, I wouldn’t say it is faster or more convenient for producing comic art. I regularly pencil when I travel, usually drawing print size rough or thumbnails, but this, to me, is the really creative part of drawing. I rarely use a ruler and do most perspective work by eye and clean things up in the finished pencils, if necessary.
I don’t know too much about the software but, from my experience with colourists, I would say most are hamstrung by the gimmicks and apply technique for its ease as opposed to its appropriateness. Your point about “you using the program instead of the program using you” is really the key to the notion of what digital art is and from my experience of making images with non-digital media I would say it is impossible for the limitations and easy options of the digital medium not to affect artistic development.

Guillermo, your English is excellent and I don’t doubt the accuracy of your anecdote. In fact, I see it as the perfect illustration of the true nature of art—the polar differences between the artist, who sits in isolation faced with a blank sheet, and the audience who share their appreciation/opinions/judgement of the artists work.
In my opinion what makes John Buscema a genuine artist (and lets not forget a master storyteller) is that he has contributed to the evolution of the comic medium by creating a vocabulary of forms and narrative rhythms. If you apply this definition to the ‘artists’ who swipe, trace or collage existing work or photographs—which seems to be the process that underpins the ‘shortcuts’ of digital art, you will understand why I am unimpressed by many digital art exponents and modern comics in general.

Alan

[Row]

Something similar to this topic was raised and discussed on The Wraith board by various creators involved in the books and readers, all about what has changed in modern comics, and it finally moved around to the technology side of it, most of us on there are old enough ( 32-42) to remember the older comics.

One of the points raised was reflected by Mig's post here, concerning inking.
We nearly all agreed that the modern trend of the colourist to set the depth in an image by coloring the inked line is awful, inking in most modern comics seems to be becoming a thing of the past, nothing in my opinion can beat the effect of depth and texture that an inker can bring to a page, which as Mig pointed out rightly, should be complimented by the colourist.

I hardly buy any comics now, I've lost count of the times I have picked a comic off the shelf to look at and put it straight back, due to the firework display style of colouring that quite frankly kills the lineart and almost causes eyestrain to look at...I'm probably missing some grand scale epic stories, but IF i can't understand the artwork, what's the point?

For me the technology of programs such as PhotoShop et al will always be behind what can really be achieved on paper or canvas.
I've yet to see PhotoShop achieve a proper wet on wet watercolour or colour dye/ink effect for painting that I like to use personally when I do colour artwork. It's still easier for me to take a photocopy of the linework and then colour that the traditional way.
And as for program like the 3d 'Sketchup' that seem to be becoming more popular, I can see the appeal of creating a set that can be viewed from any angle, but the amount of time required to build it seems a little pointless, when you can do the same thing in half the time with a pencil and ruler.
For my money half of the shortcuts or killer applications out now will become a bind in the long run, because the user doesn't learn anything from them, much like tracing a photo of a person as opposed to drawing it from the ground up, you don't learn anything about the forms and how clothes wrap around a figure from tracing, because an important part...the underlying structure... is removed from the process.

In my opinion what makes John Buscema a genuine artist (and lets not forget a master storyteller) is that he has contributed to the evolution of the comic medium by creating a vocabulary of forms and narrative rhythms.

This brings up another good point, most modern comic artists seem to dump clear storytelling for the chance of a flashy be all and end all panel shot on every page, that in most case confuses the layout of the page.
I think ( and this is my own opinion, so feel free to jump all over it) the majority of modern comic artist are trying to compete or achieve what you can do on a moviescreen, comics aren't movies, sure there are a lot of parallels between them pacing etc, but comicart can be so much more than what they're trying to imitate... Comics are by the nature of their subject matter are supposed to be dynamic and larger than life....which people like John Buscema, Neal Adams, Gene Colan and a whole host of other great comic artist proved you can have the great visual aspect and the supreb storytelling aspect too.

[DungeonmasterJim]

While inking can make or break a book, I suppose I don't really mind if it goes away or becomes 'old school' as opposed to the norm. I was always under the impression that inking mainly became important because the cameras that made the film negatives that were then burned on to printing plates needed dark solid lines. This made inking almost a neccessity back in the day. Few people to nobody uses a feather quill or ink well to write anymore. I'm not seeing people overly upset over the now mainstream use ball point pens over older utensils for writing. The time for inking is dying out because technology makes it unneccessary any more. It might not be such a bad thing.

DM Jim

[Alan Davis]

Jim. This is like saying a Jimi Hendrix classic would sound just as good played on a synthesizer. Inking may have originated as a publishing necessity but the real strength of the comic form emerged because generations of artists adapted to that necessity by developing a singularly raw and immediate visual style.

Alan

[Entropy]

Jim,

i'm going to have to disagree with you here. While i love seeing the pencils on a piece, inking more than makes a book. Take Tim Townsend for instance. A great inker, he's one of the few who can really make Bachalo shine (heck, Bachalo inking himself is only so-so). A great inker can take a standard piece and make it phenominal. Joe Rubinstein, another great inker, has made some mediocre artists look fabulous.
Also just look at some of the great comic pairings such as Davis and Farmer

In my opinion few artists comic work looks good when they are either digitally inked or not inked. Digital inks tend to lack the feeling of freehand and i won't even go into how straight digital coloring makes most pieces look.

[MiG]

As a penciler and inker myself I also strongly disagree and I think there's a vast amount of people who also do this. I'm a member back at deviantART, a place where digital art is overflowing but I've come to understand that while many have chosen to make use of digital media instead of the traditional techniques it's not because the digital way is taking over as such or because they like the it better than for instance real inking. Many I've been in contact with have actually stated that they've chosen the digital way because it's, once you've learned the tricks, in actuality a lot easier than trying your hand at real ink. One of the absolute advantages inking with a computer has is that you can redo it into infinity. When you ink by hand, depending on what you're working with, you have to get it right the first time since there is no second time in a lot of cases so you really have to know what you're doing.

Often when I submit something it's mostly in the traditional media ( yes, I also do digital work but not in the "inking" department as such, more like icons , wallpapers and trying to develop skills in the 3d environment ) and I frequently receive comments in the way like "ooo I wish I could do that" or "can you teach me how to do that? I've tried but I've found that it's easier to make it in Photoshop" or similar. Many acknowledge the fact that while digital work can look fabulous it very often lacks that certain something that gives it life. Yes, you can emulate but you can't replace.

Traditional inking is far from dead or inferior to digital inking, as a matter of fact it's a very beautiful art- form when handled correctly and the experience and skills of the inker is far more impressive than any digitally inked piece. Townsend, Farmer, Rubinstein has been mentioned here, all great inkers and there's others like Terry Austin for instance and a whole lot more really competent inkers. Let's not forget about the Belgian and French comic artists like Moebius and Bilal. Alfredo Alcala's inking of John Buscema's Conan The Barbarian is a nightmare of insane skill. I have yet to see any digitally inked piece beat any of them.

I'm not saying digital media sucks but it doesn't beat traditional media just because it offers a wide range of techniques to novices who otherwise couldn't perform at all. And that's what it does, it gives people who can't really develop the technical skill by themselves the chance to shine a little with perfect blending, tones, lines or whatever effect they can get ahold of and this is in the largest part why there's such an explosion in the digital media these days. But just because you can learn how to use the software it doesn't mean that it's the best way if you have no concept of what's workable or not in any given piece. It's like saying that Microsoft is the best just because they're the biggest which is so far from the truth that it can get.

And again, it takes an artist to create art no matter what media it is he's/she's working with and it shows regardless of what you try to do with Photoshop or any of the software available if you do not know how it's supposed to be done and look like. Brian Bolland have abandoned his traditional way as far as I've come to understand it ( which I personally think is a shame ), I might be wrong on this account but I've seen pieces he's made with the computer and it looks absolutely amazing. Like it always have done when he's had his hand in anything but he know what he's supposed to do and only when people like him, who have the talent to actually utilize the media correctly in his unique and fantastic manner I'll consider it art. Because honestly, most stuff you see which is made with a computer looks mainstream and dead or just plain crappy.

Sorry, didn't mean to come down hard on this but it is a sensitive topic for me but I do hope I haven't stepped on anyone's toes here.