Damns! You alright over there?

It's ok Nami... Just keep breathing slowly... in....... and out...... in....... and out.....


Seriously though I have never personally had good luck scanning anything other than ink. Scanning graphite just seems to pull out all of the little imperfections of the lines and if you have ever used an eraser then you can pretty much forget it at that point.

And colored pencils were always a joy as well, they look great and blend perfectly on paper but when scanned the computer seems to pull out ever single pencil stroke...

Most of the folks that I know personally either ink it on paper then scan it and clean it up a bit, or do pencils on paper, then scan them in and ink it in the computer.

Have you considered trying painter or some other not-illustrator product?

--
Please check out my new novel The First Key of Kalijor.
"To thine own self be true, and thou canst not then be false to anyone."
~William Shakespeare~

The weird thing about me is that my pencils always look aweful--they're really, incredibly sketchy (because I really prefer drawing through things) and if I show it to people (even art people!) they never have any idea of what's going on. Which is why I personally prefer ink, because then everyone else can see what I was trying to show them with the pencil XD

That being said, I'm still a terrible inker and make more mistakes than god knows what. Someone once suggested I sell my original pages, and aside from the fact that I'd never sell my original pages, there're so many mistakes they look really unrecognizable from the pages that're put online. So love your inking--that's what photoshop is for! XD

I use to be that way too. I'd love everyone elses DG stuff, but I'd really hate my own things. I actually use photoshop to digital ink, its really fun.

--
"I can do all things through Christ whom strengthens me!"
----------
My animation team's DA: ~NeonRhino

I like inking.

--

yah i dont have the time to dedicate to painter though. its an AMAZING program but i have about 20+ more hours i need to muck with it till i feel good. but i will

im fine. but when i get " passionate" its hard to hide.

and i hate illustrator.

hate.

its an artist thing. i notice i go through hate mongerling stages ever 3-4 months. now that its past (( and im getting other ideas)) i can wait for the next cycle to be a self hateing artist YAY! (( dood you totally know how it is.))

--
It's Nami-tastic!

The internetz: SERIOUS BUSINESS

and i like your inking!

i just hate how my inking isn't a representation of what i just drew.

;_;

any tips?

--
It's Nami-tastic!

The internetz: SERIOUS BUSINESS

Ummmmm......... =o______o=..... Sorry?

So.... here's my bit of advice: Ink stuff. Most of the things that I've done recently are straight ink scans with digital on multiply... Like the ducks one, that's one that's ink+digital, and the lines are pretty smooth. I enjoy inking very greatly, and since realizing that it's the path to awesome, I've had to do it more and more and have begun to enjoy it more and more. I would suggest going a better route than Microns though, because those suckers... well, suck. A lot. They dry out quickly, their ink fades like it's their freakin' job until you're using a light grey pen instead of the black pen that you payed five bucks for yesterday to use!!!! RAWRRR!!! KAT HATE MICRONS. So I would suggest investing in a better set, such as the rapidograph pens-which are freakin AWESOME. Like... seriously. Love those damned things. If you happen to have Utrecht store around you, you can get a 9-piece set for $60, which is supposed to be $120 normally. I think you might even be able to get them online for that cheap price. But if you hate stores or whatever, I've got a 7-piece set I'd be willing to sell you for $30. I know that anything more than two dollars sounds like a lot for a pen, but... these pens will last forever, and you fill them yourself which means that the ink never stops being black and when it runs out, you don't have to whine until you have enough money for a new pen, you just... put in more ink. I've been inking like crazy just as an excuse to use these things, they're that great. So like I said, I would suggest doing that.

Also, when I'm scanning, here's what I do: I scan at 300dpi [that's usually all you need unless you want to enlarge it like crazy] and then put it in your image editing program of choice. Then, the best way of making things black and white actually be black and white is using levels, so go to the levels menu and... Hm. The best way to explain it would be to show it. This is the perfect excuse to use this program I've got! WHooooo! [link] Sorry it's a retardedly large video, I guess I didn't really need to capture the whole screen. OH WELL! But also, the images that I used as the example were inked with a really small pen and actually are that jaggedy in real life, which is why they ended up being jaggedy in the computer. If you ink better, you get better results. Just how it goes.

Also, I'm a huge fan of Illustrator. I haven't used it in a couple of years for anything really serious, but it's really not as bad as you think it is. Trust me, it gets much much much better. But anyway, word on the street is that Illustrator recently added a 'vectorize' feature that means you pretty much just wave your mouse over your picture and it decides where the vectors go or something? I have noooooo idea, but I've seen its results and they're pretty good. Anyway, if you get desperate and crazy enough to try it, I suppose that's an option. But really, I would go with just... inking. And getting those sweet ass pens I was talking about.

LONG COMMENT IS MUDDAFUGGIN LOOOOOOOOONG.
But I hope at least part of it helped.

hmmm i did do digi inking only, and the work was not smooth for me. but i also didnt have a tablet, and it was mouse inking. WHEE.

hurrr maybe i shall give it a shot again ehh? any tips for digi inking?

--
It's Nami-tastic!

The internetz: SERIOUS BUSINESS