Byrne Robotics: Learning to draw again

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Anthony J Lombardi
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Joined: 12 January 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 9410

Posted: 15 April 2014 at 10:46am \| IP Logged \| 1

Sometimes working with new tools can be like learning to draw again.

For most of my drawing life it was a simple number 2 pencil that was my weapon of choice. Mechanical pencils,Non photo blue pencils and red pencils and a lightbox. All relatively new tools for me.

Oh sure in school once or twice but nothing since. Now I'm liking them very much. In some ways they are very helpful in speeding up my time. Which was why I decided to try and use them.

What I'm discovering thou is that in someways I have to change my drawing mechanics.

I love how clean my work is staying now thanks to doing the layouts in blue or red. Much less smearing. But I'm tending to do too much drawing with those. So that when I go over them with the Mechanical pencil. I'm essentially tracing. Which becomes tedious and boring. Now if I could do my finished art in the blue that would be great.

Again having never done that before. I don't know maybe it would be acceptable to submit blue pencils to an inker. Anyone who that might now if it is okay please let me know.

The mechanical pencil is another thing. I'm use to drawing using the side of the pencil. In order to get different gray tones. Can't really do that now.

So all in all. I'm enjoying the new tools but like I mentioned in the title. Sometimes it feels like I'm learning to draw again.

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Stephen Churay
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Joined: 25 March 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 8369

Posted: 15 April 2014 at 11:37am \| IP Logged \| 2

I remember having a similar issue with the non photo blue pencil.

Practice timing yourself to do a drawing. Set a timer and try to draw a
character in literally 30 seconds and keep trying until you can get
enough info on the paper. When you can get the entire figure rough
done in 30 seconds, you should be close to what you want the non
photo blue pencil to do as an underdrawing. You'll start noticing your
character have more life as well.

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Peter Hicks
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Joined: 30 April 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 1886

Posted: 15 April 2014 at 11:39am \| IP Logged \| 3

You should never stop learning to draw. There's always new tools, techniques, philosophies, etc that will forever improve your evolving art style. I have certainly inked over blue pencils, but it does make it hard to photocopy those pencils on to another art board if that is the inker's preference.

I like mechanical pencils, but there is no line weight to them as there is using the side of an ordinary pencil. But I add my line weights during inking, so that does not concern me.

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Joe Smith
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Joined: 29 August 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6596

Posted: 15 April 2014 at 12:49pm \| IP Logged \| 4

I have a monster sized light blue pencil for rough layout. It COULD be
sharpened to a fine point, but I don't do that, and it's nubby fat lead is
almost a full quarter inch in radius. I CANT overdraw with it! Walter
Simonson indicated his tendency to have amazingly kinetic movement
from panel to panel was to be fast and instinctive in that phase of the
drawing.

The moment I see some life, I grab the lead holder and indicate some
helpful hints that will make the inking an almost "connect the dots"
experience.

I will soldier on in search for the right combo to get me excitement on
the page, and fun whilst drawing.

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Steven Legge
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Joined: 28 July 2012
Location: Canada
Posts: 866

Posted: 15 April 2014 at 8:13pm \| IP Logged \| 5

You need an 11x17 printer/scanner for this, but you can pencil the crap out of your page in regular grey pencil lead with whatever kind of pencil you prefer, scan it in, and then print it out blue for inking on a nice new clean board. This will shorten the life of the printer's drive motor in the long term as 100lb comic board is probably at the borderline of how heavy a page should be going through the thing.

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Andy Mokler
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Joined: 20 January 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 2799

Posted: 16 April 2014 at 1:31am \| IP Logged \| 6

I've (relatively) recently found that using a blue pencil to lay down my sketches/foundation really helps me move on to the finished drawing more easily and more quickly.

It helps me find the line that I want easier for some reason.

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Robert LaGuardia
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Joined: 15 November 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 1296

Posted: 16 April 2014 at 6:47am \| IP Logged \| 7

That's what I do Steve. I tried to pencil in blue but I just don't like look
and feel of it.
Also, depending on your preference for paper surface, you don't need
to print the pencils out on an art board. As long as the dimensions are
right you can print out on any paper, especially since it's more than
likely the inks are going to be scanned back into the computer.

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Steven Legge
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Joined: 28 July 2012
Location: Canada
Posts: 866

Posted: 16 April 2014 at 8:03pm \| IP Logged \| 8

I don't mind penciling in blue, but I prefer the mechanical leads, and for some reason they're always out of stock in my area! I do have a 96lb paper that I tested for printing, it works well too and its slightly off-white which makes everything done on it look old, which is kinda cool.

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