satoshi-san1 asked: Hey I have a question for you bara. How do you do the lineart on your pieces? Do you use the pen tool in adobe illustrator or do you use a tablet and ink them in photoshop?
tablet + photoshop all the way, i can’t illustrate in illustrator (ha ha) to save my life. for illustrations i also prefer a slightly more organic look than ultra-smooth precise curves…sometimes i draw and ink on toothy paper and scan that in to color
nadjina asked: What do you use to ink traditionally to keep the lines from smearing when you colour???
copic multiliners and kuretake brush pens
in the past, i’ve used sakura pigma microns, which also work very nicely!
babubearrr asked: So Bara, when you do your traditional work, do you line over and completely erase the sketches? or do you line on a separate sheet, maybe with a light table or something? Your pages always look so clean!!
same sheet of paper, i don’t have a light table/lightbox/etc. thanks!
raefuun asked: What is that awesome watercolor/paper/??? texture you use in some of your pieces? Is it simply a brush's texture in painter, or did you download it/create it yourself? I love it's effect!
ah, which pieces do you mean? for most of them it’s just the “add noise” filter in photoshop, but for some (ex: my “ahoy” pic of gisele) i use an actual stock photo of textured paper that i think i snagged from cgtextures.com. sometimes i use a brown paper texture that i scanned myself from some kraft paper (used it for this, iirc)
chocolatestarlight asked: When you ink your drawings, do you first go in with a thin line and thicken them up over time, or do you put thick lines in from the beginning? And do you have a set system for what lines are thickened most, or is it just whatever you think will look the best for that drawing?
with most pictures i ink everything up front, but with some real media pieces i like to ink in thin sepia lines, then go back after the colors are done and darken/thicken some lines with a dark brown sharpie — i have to do it post-marker work or else the other markers will make the sharpie bleed when i go over it, since they’re all alcohol-based.
usually i thicken lines to try and establish a sense of weight and distance, and to separate elements of an illustration from one another…things closer to the viewer generally have thicker lines, things further away have thin ones; characters often have thick, dark outlines around them to establish them as a single element and separate them from the background, etc.
…sometimes i just do whatever though. i love bold and/or colored lineart, so i can get kind of carried away working them into my stuff :’)
royalskwater asked: how do you art?? your process I mean,,, I TOTALLY LOVE YOUR ART I can't explain but it makes me want to just draw and jump around and color something, it's really inspiring,, you're awesome (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
thank you! umm…it depends on the pic i guess? sometimes i’ll just doodle in photoshop, then keep adding to it, painting over it, etc until i like the way it looks (OK, more like until i’m sick of working on it and feel like it won’t get any better — haha.) other times, i do a CG sketch, ink it on another layer, set up flat colors under the inks, then shade, add effects, etc. i have a few vids up at livestream that illustrate the process much better than i can explain it in words
there’s also this post, that details some of the CG setups i use
on paper, i often do some quick thumbnail/layout sketches first (especially for jobs/commissions,) then do a rough, light sketch with HB lead, add details to that with 2B lead (it’s darker,) ink with copic multiliners, and color with all kinds of crap: prismacolor colored pencils, palomino watercolor pencils, prismacolor markers, copic markers, winsor & newton watercolors…sometimes i go back over and add some extra definition with sharpies, and add white highlights with rapidograph ink. when i post the finished pictures to dA and such, i usually try to list all the media i used. lately i’ve been trying to post more process photos to tumblr as well :]
