210

Meg Hunt: This is How We Do It

Meg Hunt wants to share with you almost an alphabet full of tips, tricks and hints. Meg was our special guest in 210 a few weeks ago and she zoomed these words over this weekend. THANKS MEG!

a. Colored pencil, either mechanical or Col-Erase. I use these suckers all the time. Though I also use mechanical pencils (specifically the Papermate Sharpwriters-- I love these pencils!), those are relegated to thumbnails and concept sketching when I can afford to make a mess.  The colored pencils erase well when I make mistakes but rarely show up when I convert my inkwork to Photoshop. Which means I don't have to erase my inks and risk smudging or fading. 

b.  Inks. I love inking. There's something really fun in taking a rough and tumble pencil sketch and pushing and pulling darks and lights with ink. So I use black and white ink-- I use a few black inks, but an old favorite is Dr PH Martin's Black Star Ink in Hi-Carb. White I have found good success with Pen-White (also by Dr Martin). 

c. 'inkwell'. Okay, I'm not sure whether it's an inkwell, but my dad gave it to me as a stocking stuffer when I was a kid-- I think it's a tiny Russian lacquer box. At any rate, it turned out to be perfect to hold a few dropperfuls of ink. Which isn't all that useful for dipping nibs into, but I'm accident-prone and have ruined a lot of brushes so it's great to be more mindful to not dip the brush too deep. And I lower the risk I will knock the ink bottle over anyway. For white ink I use a juice cap, but one day I hope to find another one of these suckers.

[to show you what this is: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2367/2431926666_383c1d1800_o.jpg ]

d. Brushes. I have a bunch of brushes. Some are broken in and beat up and others I try to take good care of. I love the brushes I get from Rosemary & Co-- affordable and handmade!  

e. Sturdy paper. Typically smooth. If it's for screenprintin', I order French Paper. If it's for making illustrations, I use bristol board (usually Strathmore 300 or 400 series, plate surface, 14x17"). I am frugal so I gang run multiple drawings on every page. Not especially framable, but it does the trick.

Ward Jenkins: This is How We Do It.

Above: Character Design and Animation by Ward Jenkins for the company Primal Screen

Ward Jenkins wants to tell you his 9 favorite tips and tools. Ward is also our special guest in 210 on Wednesday too! WHEEEE! Thanks Ward! Ward is an illustrator and animator and is working on his SECOND children's book!

Check out his links---> Blog, Work, Interview on Design Inspiration. He is a contributing editor at Drawn! as well! Oh, yeah and he also has an amazing collection of vintage and mid-century modern children's book illustrations. Peep those in his flickr sets.

1. Carmine Red Col Erase pencil - A (somewhat) standard among the animation industry, I still use this type of colored pencil for sketching and animating because of the fact that you can erase fairly easily (although I've been very bummed out by the quality of the lead & eraser ever since the name on the pencil changed from 'Sanford' to 'Prismacolor' several years ago). I used to draw in blue, but switched over to red when I realized that the scanner (and camera for penciltests) picked up more of the red.

2. Scanner! - My dream is to have a large bed scanner some day. I've got a regular 8.5x11in. bed right now and animation paper is much larger which bums me out immensely. 

by ward. created in ink and gouache

3. Delete whites action in Ps:  this is a Photoshop action created on my own after finding out about it when I worked at Primal Screen. It basically does what it says: deletes all the whites on an image without leaving behind an ugly white 'halo effect'. Some have asked me why not use the 'mutiply' layer effect instead, since that kinda does the same and to them I say, 'phooey'. It certainly does not do the same. I explain some of the action on this post: http://wardomatic.blogspot.com/2005/06/how-to-on-black-white.html -- I plan on going into more in depth detail about this later on on my blog. Soon, I promise.

4. Edit > Transform (& transform again)

5. Chalk brush tool  -  I cannot live without this one.

6. Eyedropper tool

7. Command U - Changing of hue/saturation: My theory is that colors like to play well with each other. Especially if they're from the same neighborhood. So, working with hue, saturation, lightness, etc. becomes this game I play with the colors on a constant basis. Lately, I've found that I'm starting to play with stronger, more saturated colors than I used to. Which is nice.

page from Ward's sketchbook

8. Sketchbook is imperative: (sorry, Frank, but I gotta have mine) any ol' sketchbook is fine, from the über-nice quality of Moleskine to the $5 garden variety you find at your local art supply store. As long as there's some blank paper, it's good to go. I try to take it with me everywhere I go, so I can record interesting scenes, buildings, people. Mostly people. When I was taking the bus on a regular basis, my sketchbook was my best friend. It became my own visual journal, as I can go back and see what I was doing during a particular time. Any thoughts or ideas that pop in my head, I'll write or sketch them down. Later on, it helps to have these sketchbooks readily available in case I need some inspiration for an interesting character I'm currently working on, or for a location, etc. It becomes my own in-house resource. But with the Ward-filter to guide me.

9. Sense of humor: Especially when dealing with various clients and art directors. Gotta keep a sense of humor for all the crazy things that might come up -- if you're easily ticked off then being an artist/designer/illustrator is probably not the best career choice for you.

One thing I try to do is stay away from actions, effects & filters that make the piece I'm working on look too 'computer-y' or 'photoshop-y'. I'll go out of my way and do certain things manually, even if it takes longer (like shadows, textures). Basically, it's about aesthetics for me. I always try to keep the human element intact with each illustration I create. That's why I still draw on pencil. On paper. I've tried out the Cintiq for inking and lines, but it's not enough for me. I'd rather have more control over what I draw with good ol' fashioned graphite & wood on paper. Going the paperless route is not an option for me right now. Sorry, trees. I still love you, though.

Okay. I'm done. Hope that's enough! Thanks for listening.

Ward