can I use illustrator without the closed shapes?

[keldon]

Hi everybody!

Maybe someone know the awnser to my question. Like most of you here I really like drawing. I used to colour my sketches/art or with pencil or with acryllic paint (sorry for the sloppy englisch... I'm dutch :D ) but anyway, I want to colour and ink it digital so the loose strokes disappear. Is Inking in Illustrator really an option? I can only create closed splines, and that's quitte annoying when you have to concider it when I'm drawing! I draw lines, not closed splines! Is there a faster or better program for inking? And is Photoshop the fastest program for colouring? Thanx!

[Phil Clark]

I beleive that most artists who do digital inking use photoshop and a tablet to get the line variations needed. It seems to me that inking in illustrator would just take way to long to do.

Inking a line in photoshop is one motion, inking a line in illustrator is four or more.

[keldon]

yeah, indeed, that is what I guessed. I'm used to work with illustrator for digital art, but I can Imagine it is too difficult for comic use. Is a drawing tablet really that handy than? When I look at it, my mind can't stop thinking that the lines that you draw will be shaky, if you know what I mean.

So the ez-est way to ink the drawings is scanning, making the lines blue, printing, inking by hand and than scanning again for colouring in Photoshop?

And one other question. Are the pages drawn at A4 size, or are they bigger, and later in the proces shrunken for more accurate drawings?

tnx! djurre

[Robin Riggs]

Originally posted by keldon
So the ez-est way to ink the drawings is scanning, making the lines blue, printing, inking by hand and than scanning again for colouring in Photoshop?

And one other question. Are the pages drawn at A4 size, or are they bigger, and later in the proces shrunken for more accurate drawings?
Really the easiest way is to just ink the original pencil drawing right on the board but yes if you don't have original pencils to work with that's the best way I know of to do it. Originals are 50% larger than the printed comic so they'd fit nicely on an A3 sheet.