[pigjamelectric]

A few weeks back I picked up an old drafting table someone was giving away. Couple of days ago, I decided to put it to work and drew this Archie pic.

I want to ink it but I don't want to wreck it. I'd rather photoshop it but lack the skills.

I'd be happy if you know photoshop or similar and want to take some time and get creative with it.

Thanks.

Paul.

[crankshaftkid]

Nice work! Wish I could help ya.

[pigjamelectric]

Thanks!

[malc]

Why dont you scan it into your computer, print it out and color that ?

[pigjamelectric]

The pencil lines will still be there with a scan. I figure with photoshop, just as with the original, the pencil lines can be erased.

I'll give the scan a shot anyway and see how it turns out.

[1Fast65Elky]

nice drawing
I added some color for ya with photoshop.
Man, it must take forever and a day to turn a black and white movie into color.
Just this picture took a couple hours it was fun though..

[pigjamelectric]

Thanks Elky! Looks good.

It was fun drawing it as well. I've been checking out cartooning sites to see what I need to ink lines in black. I've used sharpies on some other pictures, but the lines' width is constant. I want the width to vary. Also, they say pen ink fades after a while. Looks like nib pens (like calligraphy pens) and india ink are the standard. I can imagine it might get a little messy. The image that come to mind is when Charlie Brown writes his penpal and gets ink all over his face.

Off to the art supplies store...

[malc]

You need to get a set of Rotring Rapidographs
You can use a thin pen and double up the line to the thickness you desire or fade the line out.
I used them for over 25 years, here´s a cartoon from waaay back done with Rotrings.

[pigjamelectric]

Nice drawing Malc. That's exactly the type of lines I'm looking for.

Coincidently, I ended up buying a kit of four different size pens, including a brush pen which I like. I oulined a printout of the original, then scanned it.

With the help from Elky and some people at work, I was able to turn the scan into pure black and white using contrast in photoshop. A co-worker showed me how to color it in using layers. I was also able to correct mistakes made with the brush pen and other changes. For example, Betty used look like she was on the chronic in the original. I tried to straighten her out.

The edges are not as smooth and uniform as I would have liked. I assume the contrast function wasn't perfect in transforming into pure black all dark pixels. There must be another way.

Also a guy at work was telling me about vector type software which would make the edges smoother.

So much to learn.

Anyways, here's my final Archie, in living color.

Thanks to all who helped.

Paul.

[klassik100]

yeah Vector art is the way to go for clean lines.

If I was doing that toon though I would ink the lines using a brush and india ink, then scan it into photoshop. Make sure you have no gaps in where lines need to intersect and that you keep the lines solid with full ink cover. I also usually do all this on a translecent Laserjet transparency sheet, pinned or stapled to the original sketch. Make sure you have good light and a steady, flat surface.

Funny as it sounds, try to practice regular breathing as, it is easy to pause breathing while concentrating. I often find if I am not breathing properly I make little errors, so I stop and take a few deep breaths.

Now you have used the pens though, scan it into photoshop at 300 dpi or higher as a greyscale.

Once you have done that, open the photoshop file, use the magic wand tool, (turn off the anti alais at the top of the screen) set the tolerance high, say 120 pixels or more. Click the wand tool on a white space in the image, click select menu and click similar. This will select most of the white and the grey fuzzy edges, hit D then Delete on the Keyboard to make the selected area white.

Then press ctrl/shift/I or click select inverse, then press X and delete.

This should give you a nice crisp set of black lines, provided your ink lines were solid.

You can now click image then mode and select RGB,CMYK to do basic colouring or go into more complex file modes like multichannel.

Hope this helps.

If you have any Q's email me at fridgeboy@iprimus.com.au

Craig

[klassik100]

See attached PDF

[pigjamelectric]

Thanks for the step by step. That PDF is really good and clean.

I'll try the transparency on the next picture.

Just a question: After deleting all the white areas, you're left with the outlines. How do you transform them all to pure black?

Thanks for the email addy. I'll surly be using it.

Thanks Craig!

[klassik100]

after deleting the white areas, click select/inverse or press ctrl/sgift/I to invert the selection. then press X to reverse the colours from black to white and press delete again.

D on the keyboard will give you the default colours which is black ink and white background, pressing delete with the default colours selcted will delete any selected areas, similarly in RGB if the background colour slected is red, then pressing delete will make any selected areas red.

Pressing D then X wil swap the ink and the background colours.

You can see these colours displayed in the tools toolbar. If you dont have this toolbar visible click window/tools.

The little section at the bottom of the toolbar shows what ink and background colours you have selected.

Craig

[pigjamelectric]

ok, I didn't know those commands were the shortcuts. I see. I learn.
Thx.

[klassik100]

no wuckas matey