Bullfinch.

This image, my friends, is the new Wacom Intuos Tablet which is my new artistic ally. Going digital is something I’ve thought about for a long time but I always put it off in favor of blue pencil and micron pens. Over the last year and a half since I started Bullfinch I had hit a nice stride with sketching in traditional non-repro blue pencil ( an anachronistic tool which was used by comic artists before the digital age because the blue wouldn’t show up under the inks during the print process) and inking with pens and the occasional brush. They were portable and comfortable, but tablets and pressure sensitive gadgetry always flitted in my peripheral vision.
Webcomics Weekend, an event for comic artists to fraternize together in person held in Massachusetts, brought me into close physical contact with one Dawn Griffin . . . . ’s (hee hee) laptop tablet. Dawn does the amazing comic Zorphbert and Fred. Check out Dawn’s comic here! To try one out in person was quite intoxicating. When no one was looking I would research these things on amazon for prices and product reviews. This went on for months until this Christmas when I saw the sale I had been looking for online. Due to my procrastination, I missed it. So two weeks ago I bought the same item at a slightly less spectacular sale price. ( I suck.)
As with my people my initial interactions with the tablet, my computer screen, and the stylus were disorienting. It took a couple of hours to adjust to not looking directly at the area where I was drawing. With a little practice I’ve managed to squeak out some reasonable sketches. Here is example A:
This is the digital sketch I did in blue to simulate my usual hand drawn stuff. It seemed to help my brain realize what I was doing. Example B is the “inks” over the pencil marks:
To be compared with a similiar drawing of a barbarian which was done in my sketchbook by hand:
Having all of this already in a digital file made it a cinch to color:
The last two updates of my comic have been done completely digitally. It’s been a learning process but it’s going really well and I’m excited to try my hand at some more complicated comic rendering like full perspective backgrounds and larger page sizes. I also believe I can up the ante on my coloring skills as well with the stylus instead of the mouse. I will keep you informed!