Coloured artwork

Each page was coloured using Photoshop, on lower layers. The line art (scanned ink lines) remained on the top layer as a guide, and the whole file was set at 300dpi. Also use cmyk as the colur mode.

Note: the file is already larger in dimensions than the final print size, with 10 inches reducing down to 6, so 300dpi is really the equivalent of 500 dpi at 1:1 scale! So that that should be more than enough resolution. It's better to have too much, there might be another occasion where you would like to show the artwork enlarged, such as a poster or close-up.

The illustrations were filled in in flat colours with a bit of shading and small brush strokes added on top. A flattened duplicate file was then made, with the top line art layer turned off. So the result is a kind of weird but nice composition of coloured patches with the lines missing.

InDesign is now used to make up the final artwork. Set at 1:1 actual size – an American comic book format of 6.625 by 10.25 inches. Inside this page sits the artwork, which will be 6 x 9 inches, exactly 60% of the Photoshop files. Use two layers in InDesign. On the bottom place the flat coloured file (with no lines), 300dpi at 60%. On the top place the original hires bitmap line art scan, which is 1200dpi, again in at 60%. These two pictures must be in the exact same registration, x and y coordinates, percentage etc. The ultra hires line art will now sit perfectly on top of the normal resolution colour. Note the line art picture box must be set to overprint, see 'Attributes'.

Use a third layer in InDesign above the other two to add in the text. Now make a hires print ready pdf and you are finished! This some what complicated method should give a very sharp black lines when the printing plates are made.

If you're not so concerned (or obsessed) with ultra hires, the illustration could all be left in Photoshop including the black lines and text. The main point is that once you start working in colour the files sizes become so large that the resolution has to be limited.

The final pages below were made from the hires pdf, but converted to 300dpi compressed jpgs, to make them small enough to upload.

Black line scans

Results of scanning below. These were initially 1200dpi but are now only 150dpi just for emailing and posting here.

Scanning

Having inked in the comic book pages on the bristol board the next stage was to scan them.

1. Scanning at 1200dpi as Black and White worked. That gives a bitmap image, which means the image is just one level of colour, which is pure black on white. Since this is the lowest level of colour information you can be greedy and scan at a very high resolution and still have a small file size. My scanner has a maximum of 1200dpi but 2400 would not be uncommon for black line illustrations. The pixels on a bitmap image will always be stepped (jagged) since there are no intermediate greys to smooth out the curved lines (called anti-aliasing). This makes it very important to scan at the highest possible resolution so the pixel steps are so small they do not appear jagged.

The blue construction lines disappeared since the scanner in the above mode will deem them to be too light to be black and so will treat them as white.

2. Scanning in greyscale didn't work. In this mode the scanner treats the image as a range of greys. The black ink line will be black but the blue pencil will be light grey. Trying to then use Levels and Contrast in Photoshop to get rid of these light grey lines whilst retaining the black is not so straightforward. It can be done, but the final lines left behind were no better than the top method, and may have started to break up a bit with application of high contrast.

Scanning in Greyscale at 1200dpi gives a much bigger file size (more levels of shades in the file), so takes ages. Scan at a lower res, say 600dpi works, but then the lines loose in sharpness what they might gain with the 'antialiasing' smoothing.

3. Scanning in colour works. Quite interesting. With this number of colour levels 1200dpi is out of the question, but 600dpi was manageable. With the colour file in Photoshop you will have real black line and blue pencil lines. So all you have to do is to eliminate the blue. For some odd reason in RGB  the blue channel didn't seem to represent the blue! Convert to CMYK mode in Photoshop solved this. 

(Note in Photoshop there are 'channels' for each primary colour which mix to make the full spectrum of colours. They are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black)

Now the light blue pencils I use are in fact Cyan (light blue) and so all appear only in the Cyan channel. Brilliant, just delete all of this channel and the pencils are gone leaving just the black.
Well actually not quite. Maybe it just my basic desktop scanner, but the black ink line doesn't appear only in the Black channel, they also appear in the Cyan. So once the pencil lines had been removed by lightening up or deleting the Cyan channel then the black line became lighter, ie grey. The final image contrast now had to be  to get the lines back to black. I thought affected the line quality and certainly wasn't any better than the above two methods. Shame, I think better scanners would separate the black and blue better since I believe this is the normal method used by artists.

So I used method one at 1200dpi. Then for colouring up I made a duplicate changed the mode to greyscale and reduced the file to 300dpi. This way I get the advantage of pin sharp 1200dpi initial scan, and then by converting to greyscale I have the benefit of antialiasing when the image scales down.

It has to be scaled down in order to have a manageable file size for colour, and my Mac couldn't cope with 600dpi and lots of layers.

Next the file is changed into CMYK mode, ready for colouring in Photoshop.

Comic Book Course

Just finished the last of six evening classes in Comic Book Drawing, at CityLit – London. Really useful course which really made me think, and a very good tutor in Matt Boyce. Drawing from imagination is quite a challenge, especially if you need to do figure work without reference. But somehow not having to dig around for ref photos (or worse, becoming a slave to Google searches) was liberating. We (the class) for our main project had to produce a four page comic book story to a standard US size, which is a lot more work than it sounds!

Although I've recently tried techniques such as inking with a fountain pen, using pencil on drafting film, or deleting the line work leaving just a fill, I ended up sticking to the traditional approved method! It sort of goes like this:–
1. Draw out the entire page of the book on a single sheet of A3 Bristol board within a 10 x 15 inch perimeter using a light blue pencil.
2. Ink over the pencil with indian ink using instrument of choice.
3. Scan greyscale or line art, and place image into final page layout at 60% of size (6 x 9 inch). The light blue pencil should not come out on the scan, leaving just pure black lineart.

It's a big advantage to plan everything on the page, rather than making separate illustrations and putting them together in a page layout software like InDesign. Not only is it quicker but you get an immediate feel for balance and composition on the page. The challenge is drawing straight onto the final illustration surface with confidence, it's not easy to relax into.

Pleased to say that the 1068A Gillot dip pen nib worked a treat with ordinary indian ink (see previous post 'Ink'). Also used a Gillot 303 for finer lines. I even found a use for my fountain pen loaded with Pelican Fount India ink, just to do the freehand rules around the story panels. So despite my doubts the ink didn't dry in the pen (needed some coaxing into life) and is black enough.

The story is a bit contrived, sort of mystery/action, but it starts with a drawing of a real disused hotel on the South Wales coastline, near to where I grew up. I took some digi photos of the blue pencil under drawing, in colour so the blue shows. Even so the lines don't show very well but the results are below. They are now inked in, so tomorrow I'll be doing the hires scans. I've not put the text in yet, I think I'll cheat and use a font and drop it in later.

Ink

Why is ink so expensive? I've always thought it to be a bit of a mysterious medium. Unlike paint where you are aware of the pigment in it's make-up, ink just seems to have a magic colour intensity with no body at all. I guess that's what Royal Sovereign thought when they named their original ink markers 'Magic Markers'. It's difficult to tell how thin or diluted an ink might be when looking in a bottle. Shake it it looks very thin, but watch it run down the sides of the glass bottle neck and it looks dense. By the way, for fans of the sci-fi comic strip 'The Trigan Empire', the colouring was produced using inks rather than water colour, at the request of the management. They do have a certain look. Need to check reference but I think I found that on the Don Lawrence website.

I wanted to try some inks in a fountain pen, for drawing, that gave a good dense line and flowed well. There's nothing wrong with the fountain pen inks, such as Lamy, in fact they do exactly that, but not so well on layout paper. Sort of looking for the versatility of a fibre-tip combined with the quality of a drawing pen. I didn't like the Rotring Art pen, the nibs felt hard, but I do like fountain pens (but for drawing, find them hopeless for writing!)

I like to sketch on good quality layout paper and then ink on top, or on a fresh sheet placed on top. Fibre tip pens work well on layout but dip pens are a bit tricky. Their sharp points seem to catch and stick into the layout. The fountain pens, with the smoother bobble shaped tips work quite well. But for some reason,  the lines are thinner and drier on layout paper than on cartridge, even though layout has a smooth surface. Must be the capillary action or something. So I thought I'd try out a drawing ink developed for fountain pens compared to the normal ink.

There are two makes, Pelikan Fount India and one by Higgins. Both brands have top reputations for black ink. The Pelikan is really expensive, more than twice the price of the Higgins. This stuff, if you multiply the cost of a small bottle, would be £1,264.00 a gallon! So, on the normal basis that with art materials, quality costs more and is worth it in the long run, I bought some Pelikan. Testing it out I'm not so sure. It flows really well, and did give a slightly thicker line on the layout paper, so I may find it useful. I was a bit concerned looking into the bottle, that it has more of a very dark grey appearance. It is black, but it's not the really deep black of Indian ink. Also, since it's safe to use in a fountain pen, it's not waterproof, but that's the way it has to be (so can't complain).

The Pelikan Fount India works with dip pen, and it's pipette type dropper, built into the bottle cap, really aids with loading the nib. I noticed that the ink is very 'wet', I guess that's how it flows in the fountain pens, but with a dip pen, the lines were starting to bleed on the paper(s). As a comparison I rate 'Speedry Magic Colour Quasar Black', developed for airbrush and drawing pens. But it's a liquid acrylic, not an ink. Don't use in a fountain pen because it will dry and kill the pen! But now I'm curious again, I might just try filling the pen once, try it and then clean it out immediately.

If you're a pen nerd take a look at http://www.cultpens.com. Good to see ink on paper is still alive!

Last Thursday (13 Sept) went to the V&A's Print and Drawing study room (top floor). Well worth a visit, looked at four very large boxes of original book illustrations. You can't beat seeing the real artwork for figuring out 'how-on-earth' these pictures were produced. The originals by Anthony Meeuwissen and Mike Wilks were stunning, both were gouache with some subtle over shading and texturing. They have loads of Kate Greenaway originals in pen and watercolour, I was surprised how small they are. Loved the details in the scenes like the brooms, grain sacks and farmhouse brickwork.

Found out something else whilst on-route to the museum. I stopped off in Green & Stone (Chelsea) to look at pens, for drawing and inking in. They're very helpful and I now know that mapping (dip) pen nibs are graded by their flexibility, not their tip size. So the 303 is springy and will splay out quite a lot, so giving a wide range of line weights from thin to thick. For a more consistent line you need a rigid nib such as the 1068, which I bought. Somehow I expect I'll end up sticking to a fountain pen or using a fibre tip! However the 303 is a great nib – a classic.