[Kevin Birtcher]

Angie has been cranking out a number of tutorials lately for various aspects of VOID and the comics craft.  Are there any specific tutorials on a comic related topic that you are interested in seeing?

Any new tutorials may or may not be done by Angie, but we will try to get one created by the best people we can find.

So let us know!

[Elio]

* How to make your own font!

[Enef]

One of my favourite things is to see "behind the scenes" with artists whose work i enjoy, perhaps seeing how and why some of the older members with deals and books and the like do things. Maybe taking us from start to finish with a page or piece.

Art Tutorial Wise

*Effective Toning
*Nib pen tips and tricks
*Advice etc on inking with brushes

[Angie]

Everyone make sure their requests are as clear as possible. If you have a certain effect/technique you're looking to learn, it'd be awesome if you could provide reference pics so we know what you're talking about. Don't think any of the requests thus far need them, but it's something to consider if you're wanting to know a specific technique

[squid]

Ditto on toning.

I think a tutorial about inking in general could be very helpful.

[jho]

what kind of toning? all grayscale toning or manga lookalike or  shading in general?

[Kuro]

* How to make your own font!

ditto on that. i tried this, but the tutorial i originally used went on to use the program fontographer, & i don't have that. is that necessary? or does someone else have a better method?

-J

[Angie]

I think Enef means toning as in the manga way. Just a toning tutorial would suffice since it's difficult to say what is or isn't effective without a ton of examples

[chiyaniwatori]

* How to make your own font!

ditto on that. i tried this, but the tutorial i originally used went on to use the program fontographer, & i don't have that. is that necessary? or does someone else have a better method?

-J

Making a font with certain programs (fontographer, font creator, anything that comes up when you google "font creation software", etc) is pretty straightforward: write out the alphabet, scan it in, split it up, arrange parts, rinse, repeat. I know of one font program that's open source (FontForge), but getting it to run involves setting up a cygwin environment, which would be another tutorial in itself.

Personally, I think it'd be more worthwhile to just have a tutorial on how to letter by hand, even if it means lettering on a separate page and compositing in Photoshop.

[Elio]

* How to make your own font!

ditto on that. i tried this, but the tutorial i originally used went on to use the program fontographer, & i don't have that. is that necessary? or does someone else have a better method?

-J

Making a font with certain programs (fontographer, font creator, anything that comes up when you google "font creation software", etc) is pretty straightforward: write out the alphabet, scan it in, split it up, arrange parts, rinse, repeat. I know of one font program that's open source (FontForge), but getting it to run involves setting up a cygwin environment, which would be another tutorial in itself.

Personally, I think it'd be more worthwhile to just have a tutorial on how to letter by hand, even if it means lettering on a separate page and compositing in Photoshop.

Ok, well with that thinking, lettering by hand would be even more straight forward.
Write words on your page, and make sure people can read them.

Aha, but there is more to it then that!

A good tutorial isn't just instructions. It's tips and tricks from people who use the techniques everyday.
Thinks to look out for, things to avoid. 
Also keeping in mind, people who are reading the tutorial might be brand new to the software or material,
so what might seem straight forward to some, could be confusing to others.

[Corny]

I want to see a tutorial on effective lighting. What I mean by this is how do you know how dark to make the colors if it's a night scene? What if the sun is really bright? What if something is reflecty?

There's probably a tutorial out there already made, so even a link to one about this would be benefitial to myself and others.

[Kuro]

Making a font...
is pretty straightforward...
involves setting up a cygwin environment

yeah... unix shell. pretty straightforward. hahah

i knew the step by step & have the scans vectored & ready to go. of course that's the easy part. but it's a pain in the ass to get to a point in a tutorial for it to suddenly say 'ok now you're going to need this'. i guess what i was asking is if there was a way to do it without that sort of 'then you need this piece of software' routine. but i guess not.
i was mostly dittoing a full tutorial for the sake of others. something more than a sentence haha something that would include what you would do inside this type of a program, such as kerning & leading & etc so you could make the most out of both the look of the typeface & your spacing.

-J

[rabbitrabbit]

Ditto on toning.

Actually, I've been working on making a tutorial for toning.  Regardless of how well I succeed or fail to use toning to render my own work effectively, I've got a mechanical method that works real nice. 

If Perca and/or BSLugeTH wanna beat me to it, more power to 'em. 

[The Pacifier]

ive been looking for the best way to use photoshop to color
it seems to really help with comics and im not entirely sure about everything

[Angie]

ive been looking for the best way to use photoshop to color
it seems to really help with comics and im not entirely sure about everything

http://entervoid.com/board/index.php?topic=9939.0

[The Pacifier]

but is the best way to do it
draw it on photoshop
or draw it then scan it?

[Angie]

I draw it and then scan it, but it's really up to your personal preference. I personally hate drawing with a tablet, but you might feel differently

[UndeadOrion]

I draw it and then scan it, but it's really up to your personal preference. I personally hate drawing with a tablet, but you might feel differently

I'm just the opposite. My hands aren't very steady sometimes, so getting something drawn clean enough to color is a pain when using pencil and ink. You can't zoom to 400% on paper. XD But, it all depends on what works best for you, as Angie said.

[Kevin Birtcher]

Many thanks to Marley, Angie, and Kure for their recent contributions to our tutorials section.

This will be on-going, with the hope of adding many more talented artists writing on various topics.  Anyone can help by naming a topic they would like a tutorial written on, or contributing a new tutorial for a topic artists can tackle in many different ways.

Thanks once again to our generous artists.

[gabrielwhist]

Hey, I was directed here for specific help. I'm trying to improve my drawing skills, on clothing in particular. General backgrounds are also a necessary skill I need to beef up, but clothing is my number one priority at the moment. Any and all help in this matter would be much appreciated.

[Angie]

Hey, I was directed here for specific help. I'm trying to improve my drawing skills, on clothing in particular. General backgrounds are also a necessary skill I need to beef up, but clothing is my number one priority at the moment. Any and all help in this matter would be much appreciated.

Well I don't think we can really give you a tutorial for backgrounds http://entervoid.com/board/index.php?topic=8033.0 might help though. The only thing you can really do about backgrounds is practice them like crazy since there is no set way to do them. I prefer when people do their own style for backgrounds, but you also have to have perspective down for it to be convincing.

As for clothing, that's something that could be done. I personally don't think I'm the best for that tutorial since it's not something I'm good at so if anyone else would like to cover it that would be great

[Kuro]

you gotta be a bit more clear

like clothes. do you mean folds & wrinkles or actually styling clothes? while a tutorial might be a good idea, in the meantime, looking at things like catalogs & clothing ads for reference help. i mean despite the many different styles of clothes, folds & wrinkles happen in generally similar ways when they're draped over the body. like with other objects, the same principles of light & shadow apply. if you're talking style, well heck same applies.

just saying backgrounds is an even broader topic. wanna practice a background? draw a character in a scene & forget the character haha that thread angie suggested goes through perspective quite nicely & just because a scene isn't in a city or next to a building doesn't mean the rules of perspective don't apply. read through that & apply it to a scene. if by backgrounds you mean more like how to draw certain things that populate backgrounds, again that's where looking at reference comes into play.

generally when it comes to tutorials, they are more about covering the step by step of the technical aspects, where what you're asking for seems more like the overall execution.

-J

[Marley]

Hey, I was directed here for specific help. I'm trying to improve my drawing skills, on clothing in particular. General backgrounds are also a necessary skill I need to beef up, but clothing is my number one priority at the moment. Any and all help in this matter would be much appreciated.

Clothing is a complicated thing because there is no one way to draw cloth. Different materials produce different kinds of folds. For example leather isn't going to fold like cotton, spandex isn't going to crease like denim. The folds also follow whatever action is taking place. My best suggestion would be to examine clothing in movies, magazines or *gasp* do life study in some outdoors location find a way to simplify it, incorporate it into your own work and then PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. The internet is also a perfect resource for finding clothing reference, so use and abuse it!!!

As for getting better at backgrounds, again it requires a lot of personal observation and practice. I do keep various amounts of reference materials, and I have many folders on my computer dedicated to specific locations, but you can't just rely on reference. There has to be a part of you that understands how backgrounds function in your artwork. The only way for you to get that understanding is if you practice drawing backgrounds constantly. So when you're drawing a snazzy new character design, dedicate the same amount of time to practicing backgrounds in various perspectives and locations. Seek out some basic perspective tutorials online. Just google search "one point perspective" and "two point perspective" and a gazillion links will pop up. I actually made a quick perspective tutorial on these forums, but the images are outdated and have disappeared (sorry ill have to fix at some point =P).

I hope this helps a bit.

[Andre]

http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Wrinkles-Drapery-Solutions-Practical/dp/0823015874

I dont own this book but I should. And you probably should too. Its about the best Ive ever seen the complicated idea of drawing clothing and wrinkles explained.

It tells you about it better than I could, but this book basically goes over the points where clothing pulls when you move and how to just get a better understanding on how to draw folds and where they would fall and such.

[gabrielwhist]

Thanks guys, this all sounds like great stuff that I will definitely look into. I think a bigger problem I have with clothing than dealing with the folds and wrinkles though, is making it fit right. Whenever I draw clothes they end up as spandex, or purlap bags. I have trouble making them hang off of the character well, so that they seem an appropriate size.