What are your favorite drawing tools (pens, pencils, markers, drawing tablet, all of the above)?

Pencil and paper. I like to keep things simple, with as little as possible in the way between me and the art. I construct my drawings in a non-photo blue pencil, then render them in either drawing pencil (2B & 2H) or in ink with a # 2 brush and disposable pens. From there, the work is (usually) scanned and colored digitally.

If you have a wide collection, how do you decide on which to use on a particular drawing, project, or day?

The tools used will depend on what the finished work will be used for. Comics will usually get the ink/color treatment, while illustrated works (e.g. a book cover, CD liners) may end up as a full-on digital painting.

If you prefer pens, is there any particular brand, color, or type of ink you like best?

I use disposable Micron pens. I used to depend on a set of Rotring Isograph technical pens that had an incredible ruler device in the lid of the case, but that set doesn’t seem to be made any more, and the other technical pens I’ve used just don’t perform as well. Microns (or any other brand of suitably dark brush pens) are quick and easy to wield, and give me a good solid ink line.

I also like to use a generic Staples brand black gel pen for sketching and looser work. It gives me a nice heavy black line, but allows me to more expressive and impulsive than do the Microns.

How do you like your color? Watercolor? Acrylics? Oil? Colored pencils? Markers? All of the above?

I like my color digital, if possible. I do use a Wacom at times, but, since I work from varied locations, I’m most comfortable with a mouse, and I love being able to manipulate photographs to add texture to my color. When I do paint a piece by hand, I prefer acrylics thinned with linseed oil (it slows the drying time and lets you work the paint better).

If you do use paints, inks, pencils or markers for coloring, are there any in particular that are your favorites? Do you prefer travel sets or do you need a full set of colors?

Winsor & Newton acrylics work just fine for me. I’ve also got a travel set of Pelikan watercolors that I’ve had forever that I sometimes use for painting backgrounds. I’ve gotten pretty good at mixing colors by hand, so I tend to work with a limited palette when I paint. I don’t have room in my studio or in my head for a wide range of colors.

If you have a different set of tools for working in your studio (or office, or home, or on the couch) and out in public (at the park, or a coffee shop), what are the differences?

My studio tools are mostly digital, excepting my drafting table. It’s a huge wooden job with a built in light table that some friends gave me for a birthday a couple of years ago, and it’s an object of pride in my studio. When working away from home, I mostly use a mechanical pencil or the Staples brand pens I mentioned earlier.

Is there any particular type of notebook or drawing pad you prefer? Or does any scrap of decent-sized paper work in a pinch?

Strathmore bristol for finished pencil or ink work. For sketchbooks, it’s a matter of what’s at hand. I’ve got sketchbooks ranging in size from about 3 inches square to 11 x 17, although if given a choice, I’d rather do my rough work on plain old bond paper. Comes from all those years spent doing phone doodles in an office environment.

If you paint, is there any particular type of canvas you prefer? Do you like to paint on wood or other material?

For commercial work, I prefer a nice smooth Hi-Art illustration board. I sometimes like to mix ink with watercolor with acrylics, and nothing else takes the various media quite as well. Occasionally, I’ll work on canvas board or plywood with lots of primer, but they’re exceptions.

Do you ever do any kind of post-processing (like adding color in Photoshop or similar tool) to your art?

Yes. Almost always. As I mentioned earlier, I enjoy fiddling around with photographs to add textures to my art, and a judicious use of filters can save me hours of drawing and painting time. I prefer working with The Gimp, but until they add proper CMYK support, I’ll be working with Photoshop as well.

Have you ever tried a new pen (or paper, etc) from reading about it, or seeing the results in another artist’s work?

I use the Micron pens because a friend (Ian McDonald, creator of Bruno the Bandit recommended them to me, and I happen to really like his inking, and especially his lettering. I got the trick of using linseed oil with my acrylics from a book by Boris Vallejo, and from being very frustrated with the quick drying time, because I like to fiddle around with my colors once I’ve laid them down.

Do you have anything you use out of the ordinary for making your art?

Is Google still considered out of the ordinary for this sort of thing? For reference, there’s no better tool than Google Image Search. Also, Wikimedia Commons is the source of many a photographic texture for me. I’ve also just started using a program called Ginipic that searches various image sources like Google, Flickr, etc., but I’m still getting the hang of that one.

If you create collages, where do you get the materials and objects you use in your pieces?

I don’t do collages as such, but I will sometimes scan objects from around my house to use as textures.

When creating your digital art, what are the software programs you use? Is one used more than another?

I like working with the open source program The Gimp. I find it’s brush scaling preferable to Photoshop’s, and some of its filters work well for me. There are some little interface tweaks in there that I prefer, but that may just be because I’m more used to them. Also, I’ve collected a nice assortment of Gimp brushes from Deviantart and haven’t found Photoshop replacements for all of them yet. If I know that the piece is going to be used digitally, or if CMYK does not matter, I’ll use The Gimp to complete the project. Otherwise, I’ll very often build up most of the piece in Gimp, then export it as a .psd and finish it off with a CMYK conversion and some color adjustments in Photoshop.

If you work both digitally and non-digitally, which do you find yourself doing more? Is there a reason you would prefer one of the other? Is it because of the tools available in either space?

The last couple of years, I’d say about 90% of my work is finished digitally, although it always starts out on the drawing board. I love the tactile immediacy of pencils, pens and brushes, but I also like the speed and intricacy of digital work, so it’s a tossup which I prefer. I work in digital more because that’s where my market is. Most of my clients approach me online, and the work is delivered to them via email or online storage services.

I asked about post-processing on a computer, but do you think the computer is a helpful tool for making art? Whether it’s looking for inspiration online, or using it to build a weblog to promote yourself and your art, do you think a computer is necessary, helpful, or a distraction (or all of the above)?

For me, the computer is absolutely indispensible. It’s a sales tool, a communications device, and a production shop all in one. The internet is the largest swipe file and reference book you’ve ever seen, and the availability of so many free tools for writing, art production and self-promotion has significantly lowered the cost of getting your work out to the public.

It can also be quite a distraction if you allow yourself to get lost in surfing the net or tweaking out your system, but that’s a test of the discipline of the artist. Any tool is only as good as your use of it.

Thanks Mike!

Mike Dominic can be found online at his weblog paladinfreelance.com. His older webcomics can be seen at “The Journals of Simon Pariah” and guest stories at Bruno the Bandit.

What are some of your favorite drawing tools (pens, pencils, markers, drawing tablet, all of the above)?

I like to draw directly in pen when sketching since it forces me to loosen up and lighten up and let things get as goofy as they often do. Or, if I want to be more accurate, drawing in ink helps me to remember to go slow and look closely at my subject.

Pencil: I’m rather fond of my Papermate Titanium .5mm mechanical pencil with built in eraser. I have a variety of drawing, drafting and mechanical pencils but I’m not too attached to any of them.

If you prefer pens, is there any particular brand, color, or type of ink you like best?

The Pigma Micron .01 black ink pen is my favorite. I like the fact that ink is permanent and waterproof and doesn’t bleed or dissolve when adding watercolor the way some other “permanent” or “waterproof” inks do. I’ve tried many others, from fountain pens to dip pens to markers, but I always come back to my Pigma Micron.

If you have a wide collection, how do you decide on which to use on a particular drawing, project, or day?

If I’m sketching from life, I choose my Pigma Micron. If I’m sketching from my imagination I usually use a pencil since I’m not sure where I’m going and kind of sculpt the drawing from scribbles as I go.

How do you like your color? Watercolor? Acrylics? Oil? Colored pencils? Markers?

Watercolor had been my primary medium for 30 years. Then a couple years ago I tried (unsuccessfully) switching to acrylic. I just couldn’t get acrylics to do what I wanted (though I will likely give them another try at some point). Then I moved on to oils and I’ve been studying oil painting since, while not giving up watercolor. I’m finding that some subjects look better to me in different media. For example, when I want to capture detail or delicate flowers, watercolor is my medium of choice; landscape, especially plein air, seems to call for oil painting.

If you do use paints, inks, pencils, or markers for coloring, are there any in particular that are your favorites? Do you prefer travel sets of paints to a full set?

I have several different watercolor sets and two oil-painting setups. When I use gouache or watercolor in the studio I have two large Robert E. Wood palettes that live on a Boby tabouret beside my large drafting table. One is filled with gouache, the other with watercolor. My watercolors are a variety of artist colors mostly from Winsor & Newton and Daniel Smith, with a couple of Holbein and Schmicke colors thrown in.

When I go out to sketch in ink and wash, I carry a Winsor & Newton Artists’ Watercolor Field Box Set (over the years I’ve replaced all the original pan paint with colors I prefer from tubes).

If I want to use gouache in the field I carry an old small, Schmincke metal folding palette (my first watercolor set) that holds 12 half pans which I’ve filled with mostly M. Graham and Schmincke gouache from tubes.

I have a sturdy zipper bag I got at Utrecht that’s about 8x10 into which I can easily fit my entire sketching kit in (including sketchbook). The items I include in my sketching kit are:

• Micron Pigma .01 pen (my favorite sketching pen)
• Kuretake waterbrushes
• Kleenex purse pack of tissues
• Sketchbook
• optional extras:
  • 2 oz plastic squirt bottle (optional, easier than using waterbrushes to moisten paint and good for sprizting the paper if needed)
  • 2 oz plastic bottle with extra water
  • pencil
  • kneaded eraser

If I’m doing an actual plein air painting in watercolor rather than a sketch, I have a larger, Holbein palette. Then I use a watercolor block instead of a sketchbook and carry real brushes in a canvas brush holder, still quite portable.

For oil painting in the studio I have an old Stanrite Aluminum #700 easel and for field work I use my Soltek Pro (needed the Pro’s extra height because I’m tall). I’m currently using mostly Winsor & Newton oils and a few Gamblin but selecting my oil colors is still a work in progress.

Is there any particular type of notebook or drawing pad you prefer? Or does any scrap of decent-sized paper work in a pinch?

Lately I’ve been using mostly Moleskine watercolor sketchbooks and Strathmore Medium Drawing spiral bound sketchbooks. In the past I was fond of the inexpensive Aquabee Super Deluxe spiral bound. I’ve tried many others that I didn’t like for one reason or another. I recently purchased a Fabriano Venezzia bound sketchbook and am looking forward to using it next. Of course I’ll draw on just about anything if no sketchbook is at hand. One of my favorite sketches was done on the back of a bag of Trader Joe’s Biscottis while waiting in the checkout line.

If you paint, is there any particular type of canvas you prefer? Do you like to paint on wood or any other materials?

Yes! I’ve tried stretched canvas and practically every kind of painting panel there is and I LOVE Ampersand’s Gessobord. I use their 1/8” flat panels because they’re the least expensive, while still being “archival, museum quality.”

Do you ever do any kind of post-processing (like adding color in Photoshop or similar tool) to your drawings?

I went through a phase of drawing in ink or directly on the computer using a Wacom tablet and then coloring them in Painter for creating illustrations, but didn’t love spending so much time at the computer so have moved away from that for now.

I do post-processing in Photoshop when I prepare photos or scans of my artwork for my blog. Despite my care in lighting, monitor calibrating, etc., I almost always have to make some adjustments to the digital photos. I also do the same for photos I want to use for reference material.

Have you ever tried a new pen (or paper, etc) from reading about it, or seeing the results in another artist’s work?

Oh yes! I’m easily seduced by glowing descriptions by other artists of their new discoveries.

Do you have anything you use out of the ordinary for making your art?

Nope.

If you create purely-digital art, what are the software programs you use? Is one used more than another?

I was using Painter rather than Photoshop as it had more artist-friendly tools but it crashed way too often.

If you work both digitally and non-digitally, which do you find yourself doing more? Is there a reason you would prefer one of the other? Is it because of the tools available in either space?

I prefer spending less time at the computer since I have a part-time day job that requires me to be at the computer the whole time, as does blogging, and too much computer time = too many physical aches and pains.

I asked about post-processing on a computer, but do you think the computer is a helpful tool for making art? Whether it’s looking for inspiration online, or using it to build a weblog to promote yourself and your art, do you think a computer is necessary, helpful, or a distraction (or all of the above)?

Yes, to all of the above.

Thanks Jana!

Jana Bouc can be found online at her website/porfolio janabouc.com, her journal and sketch weblog, and on Flickr (janabouc).

What are your favorite drawing tools (pens, pencils, markers, drawing tablet)?

I like mechanical pencils so I don’t have to sharpen them. I like to use coloured Col-Erase pencils for roughs, too, so I don’t have to do any erasing before scanning.

For inking I prefer dip-pens, and my favourite nibs are the Hunt 108 and the Nikko G-Nib. I’ve played with brushes, but never really took them over nibs, but I do like the Pentel pocket brush pen for sketching.

Tablet-wise I use a Wacom Cintiq.

If you have a wide collection, how do you decide on which to use on a particular drawing, project, or day?

I generally use whichever is right for a given project. Generally, most of what I do involves pen-and-ink drawings and Photoshop, so I don’t vary too much.

If you prefer pens, is there any particular brand, color, or type of ink you like best?

See above.

How do you like your color? Watercolour? Acrylics? Oil? Markers? Colored pencils?

Almost all my colour work is done digitally. I can’t visualize colours well enough to do them right the first time, and I’m too impatient to do colour studies beforehand, so I like working digitally and being able to alter colours on the fly. I work with dozens of layers and masks which gives me the freedom to experiment in changing the hue and saturation of my colours.

Is there any particular type of notebook or drawing pad you prefer? Or does any scrap of decent-sized paper work in a pinch?

Anything will do in a pinch, and there’s a certain freedom that comes with using cheap paper since I’m less afraid to make mistakes, and oftentimes the mistakes are what make something great. Expensive sketchbooks can be intimidating, but I do like to use the cheapish generic black hardcover sketchbooks. Their quality seems to vary, and I’ve found it difficult to find ones with paper that can take ink without bleeding. But when I do, they’re the perfect book for me — I like the size, and they’re generally durable enough to toss in a backpack and go.

I like Moleskine notebooks, but I find them too precious for everyday sketching. But I do use the squared graph-paper Moleskines for planning-out and thumbnailing comics since it’s quick and easy to throw down grids of various dimensions.

Do you ever do any kind of post-processing (like adding color in Photoshop or similar tool) to your drawings?

Practically all of my colour work is done in Photoshop, so it’s not post-processing so much as it is, well, processing. Using the computer is a standard element of my workflow, and many of my illustrations are created from start to finish on the computer without ever having touched a pencil or piece of paper.

But, I do use Photoshop to clean up and edit pen-and-ink drawings. It’s often quicker and more accurate to fix things on the computer than to pull out the white ink to paint corrections.

Have you ever tried a new pen (or paper, etc) from reading about it, or seeing the results in another artist’s work?

On occasion, but generally I just like to scour an art store for things I’ve never used before and try them out. Recently I’ve been aching to try out these Ackerman refillable brush and dip-pens on the recommendation of Michael Cho. Twitter is a great place to network with other artists to talk shop, which is where I first read about these pens.

Do you have anything you use out of the ordinary for making your art?

I don’t have anything particularly unusual, but my favourite art tool is my drafting table from the 1960s that I’ve had since I was a teenager.

When creating your digital art, what are the software programs you use? Is one used more than another?

I use Photoshop primarily, but Illustrator is indispensable as well for creating geometric shapes and technical drawings. Illustrator is also far more forgiving when playing around with type. Photoshop’s type tools are still rather limiting; I prefer being able to pull words and letters apart, convert them to objects, and be able to have fine control over everything.

I have also been playing around with Manga Studio, which I’m discovering has a unique approach to its drawing tools. It’s the first digital drawing program I’ve used where the pen tool feels like and behaves like a dip-pen or a brush. It’s still a bit sterile compared to using the real thing, but it seems to have been created with the cartoonist in mind.

Do you approach making art on the computer differently than you do with pen, inks, paper, and paint?

Absolutely. Working digitally allows me to better think in terms of shapes and colours. Working with flat colours on various layers makes the process of building an image a lot more like two-dimensional sculpting sometimes because I can add or take away mass from the shapes I’m working with. Drawing with traditional tools makes it too easy for me to rely on linework to define everything, and forget about the geometry and design of an image.

Since you work both digitally and non-digitally, which do you find yourself doing more? Is there a reason you would prefer one of the other? Is it because of the tools available in either space? Or perhaps because the client work you do?

I find I do most personal work with traditional tools, because it’s a far more intimate experience, and I am not worried about meeting deadlines. With client work, any way for me to economize my time I will, and working on the Cintiq really cuts down on time spent drawing, erasing, inking, scanning, printing, etc.

I asked about post-processing on a computer, but do you think the computer is a helpful tool for making art? Whether it’s looking for inspiration online, or using it to build a weblog to promote yourself and your art, do you think a computer is necessary, helpful, or a distraction (or all of the above)?

Obviously I find the computer to be a helpful tool for making art, but its greatest uses are just what you mention — accessing an endless vault of inspiration and reference material, and being able to market myself and keep in contact with clients.

It can also be a distraction. The Internet is an incredible timesuck, which is dangerous when working on the computer, so I find it helpful to disconnect from the Internet every day for a few hours to concentrate on doing work.

Thanks John!

John Martz can be found online at his portfolio and his weblog robotjohnny.com. John is also quite active on Twitter (@robotjohnny) and Flickr (robotjohnny).

And if you’re not familiar with John’s fantastic comic/cartoon artist and illustrator resource Drawn!, then it’s time you update your bookmarks and feed reader!