The Sbuirrels #9: Upp Talkback

https://www.doorjamcreations.com/webcomics/the-sbuirrels/009-upp

After creating The Holy Trinity, I got re-interested in developing print books of my webcomics. Until recently, I've been creating them in Photoshop at 72 DPI. Starting with "Spy Carts", I drew, inked, and colored them in Photoshop at 300 DPI. The downside to this is that (most likely due to the great amount of memory being used) most of the time marks, like inking and color spots, take a little longer to appear, in contrast to the 72 DPI comics where it was quicker. Ditto for saving files.

So, after thinking about it for a little while, I recalled the blob brush tool in Illustrator and decided to try that for my webcomics, at least inking them. I could scan/produce rough sketches in Photoshop at 72 DPI, then create an Illustrator file at CMYK and 300 DPI, import the sketch, then ink (and maybe color) the comic, finally exporting the complete file as a TIFF or JPEG.

That's the primary purpose of this issue: basically an Illustrator test for future webcomics. The issue of slightly longer saving times is still present, but that might be due to the bigger file size. I had trouble making straight lines with the blob brush at first, but I had not issue when creating the cover. The secret is to hold the shift key first before moving your Wacom pen.

Additionally, Illustrator seems good for solid colors, but not so much for shadows and highlights, as I found out when trying to make the cover. I ultimately had to copy-and-paste the line art into Photoshop and color it in. It was originally going to be just the image of Ed, Ryan, and Mary staring dramatically at something (to contrast with the comic), but to me, it seemed a little bare. So, I added the golden border around it to make it look like it was in a picture frame.