Radiant Comics

I finally decided and pulled the trigger on buying a new camera. I’ve been researching which one to buy for the last year. I wanted to get one earlier this year but then both my laptop and printer broke and repairing the laptop and replacing the printer cost me my money that I was planning on spending on a new camera. Such is life.

I was an early adopter of the digital format in photography. I switched over to a digital camera way back in 2000. It was only a three megapixel camera but it cost a whole lot of money. Before going digital I shot with a Canon EOS Elan 35mm SLR camera. I liked it. It was a step up from the Canon Rebel and a step below Canon’s pro SLR. I don’t think that category exists anymore.

My first digital camera was a Nikon Coolpix 950. At least I think it was that model. I really can’t remember. Besides liking digital photography the one thing I learned with that camera is that I liked shooting from the waist. It had a body that twisted so that you could look down at the LCD screen. Instead of putting the camera in front of your face and looking through a viewfinder or at the LCD screen you could hold it at waist level like an old fashioned box camera.

Since I like shooting candids and street photos I found it easier not to have the camera in front of my face. Not only could I see what was going on around me easier but people were more relaxed. Somehow putting a camera in front of your face makes people tense up. Or maybe that’s just an easy cue telling them that they’re on camera. Shooting from the waist is less of a cue and people stay more relaxed. I’ve made sure all my digital cameras since then have swivel LCD screens.

The lack of a live view swivel LCD screen has kept me away from digital SLRs for the last decade. I don’t want to buy any camera that I can’t shot from the waist with. Except for a pocket point and shoot camera. I’ll accept no swivel LCD with one of those because they don’t make them with swivel LCDs and it’s just a supplementary camera for when I don’t want to carry the bigger one.

The last time I bought a new camera was 2005. A nine megapixel Coolpix 8800. It’s served me well but after five years there have been many improvements to digital cameras so I wanted a new one. That camera is one in what has become known as the “Ultrazoom” category of cameras. It’s a camera for the advanced amateur that has a big zoom lens on it but the lens is built in. There is no switching of lenses in this category. What the camera has built in is what it has now and forever.

In deciding what camera to get I, kind of, wanted to step up to a digital SLR system. But almost all of those don’t come with a swivel LCD. That is a deal breaker for me. Even the Nikon that does have a articulated LCD doesn’t have the range of motion that I expect from a swivel LCD. Though I didn’t necessarily want another Ultrazoom I certainly wanted that swivel LCD.

Over the last year or two a new type of digital camera has come onto the scene. The new four thirds standard. You see a DSLR doesn’t shine the light of the picture you’re taking directly on the digital sensor. It’s reflected on by a mirror. With a four thirds camera the light directly hits the digital sensor. The sensor is also smaller than on a DSLR. The cameras I was looking at were micro four thirds camera which means they were small and light.

The micro four thirds cameras I was looking at had swivel LCD screens and interchangeable lenses. Of course the immediate question with an interchangeable lens system camera of any kind is, “What lenses should I get?”. Lenses can get real expensive. Every photographer wants a “Fast” lens. That’s a lens that opens wide and lets in a lot of light so the shutter speed is fast and the photographer can freeze the action without blurring. Or the photographer can take photos in low light. Both of those thing come with a fast lens and a fast lens can be expensive. A fast zoom lens even more so.

In researching the micro four thirds system and lenses I found one that I wanted. It consisted of the camera body, which only came in a kit, a short fast lens, and a zoom lens that wasn’t too fast. The cost for each of those parts: $700, $350, and $300. You can see how that gets expensive quickly. Not only did I not have the money I wasn’t sure I wanted to drop that much on a new camera even if I did.

I went on to check out some of the new ultrazoom models that have been coming out. Though they have nice big zooms they are fairly slow lenses. No slower than what I’m shooting with now but I wouldn’t be able to switch to a faster lens if need be as I would with the micro four thirds system. I ended up with about nine cameras bookmarked on my wish list and I kept looking at them and trying to decide which would be best.

After a month of pondering the low-priced option won out. I went with an Canon Powershot SX20IS. That’s a new ultrazoom model that is a lot like my old Nikon Coolpix 8800 except it has a bigger zoom, is 14 megapixels, and saves to the card a lot faster. Saving to the card a lot faster was also a reason I wanted to get a new camera. I like to burst shoot (the digital equivalent of a motor drive) and after I did that with my old camera it took nearly a minute to save to the card. The new one takes seconds to save.

The Canon ran me $429. With tax and a second battery it came in at just over $500. Not an insignificant sum but a third of what going for the micro four thirds model costs.

I’ve shot with the Canon a couple of times so far and I like it. The zoom is ridiculously big and I will probably not have much need for it at full magnification but it is cool. The controls seem pretty easy to learn but I’m not sure if I’m totally happy with the image quality yet. That could be because I have a setting wrong, specifically using the auto-ISO, and it’s going to take some more photos to really know but I’m glad I got it. I’m very much a “Use whatever equipment I got” kind of artist but I like to get new things too. Plus now I can stop wasting my time trying to decide which camera to buy. That’s a plus.

In looking around the internet lately I’ve noticed cartoonists posting demos of them working in a relatively new program called Manga Studio EX. I enjoy a good demo video but, let’s face it, most such videos are dull. Drawing is just not a performance art and watching somebody draw on a computer seems to make it even duller. But it got me contemplating the place of the computer in making comics and comic art.

The use of computers to make comics is nothing new. It’s been going on for at least fifteen years but mostly computers have been used on the production and coloring end of comics. Until lately not a lot of people drew comics on a computer. Brian Bolland immediately springs to mind. His comic book cover illustrations have been made completely via computer for years now. But he was the only one I knew of who did things that way. Now he is far from alone. I keep reading about new people doing all of their drawing and cartooning on the computer.

I think there are two things driving this trend. The Wacom Cintiq and the Manga Studio program. For years artists have been using pressure sensitive tablets from Wacom and other manufacturers in order to draw on the computer. But they are not easy for novices to draw with. The pen is on the tablet but the line comes out on the computer screen. It takes practice to draw when you can’t look at your hand. The Wacom Cintiq is a pressure sensitive tablet that is a computer screen. For about two grand you get a twenty one inch LCD screen that you can draw on with a pressure sensitive pen. Much less of a learning curve than a regular tablet. That smaller learning curve is key.

Photoshop has been the program of choice for artists in general for ages now. Almost all comic book production and coloring is done in it. When you see comic books being printed from “Enhanced pencils” rather than ones that are traditionally inked that just means that someone played with Photoshop sliders to make the pencils look more like inks. Inking is actually pretty hard to do in Photoshop. At least for a novice.

Inking for comic books is usually done with a pointed paintbrush or a old fashioned dip pen dipped in ink. The ink is then applied to the paper. The inker basically re-draws the pencil work in ink adding shadows, light, and giving it its final form. This is something that can be done in Photoshop but the brush and pen tools are not set up by default to do this. They’re set up to manipulate photos. If you want to ink comics in Photoshop you have to fool around with the brush settings and figure out how to do it. It’s a pretty steep learning curve for the novice. There are a lot of bells, whistle , and distractions in Photoshop.

This is where Manga Studio comes in. I’m no expert in the program and have only fiddled around in it a little bit but I can see why so many young artists have embraced it. It doesn’t do anything Photoshop can’t but because it’s specifically made to create comics it takes away the steep learning curve of how to use the tools. There is no figuring out how to make the brush tool mimic an ink line. That’s its default setting. There are also perspective drawing aids that make things easier.

Learning to use a real ink brush or pen takes time and practice. Some inkers are pen people and some are brush people. It’s just what suits you but the novice won’t even know which until he tries one or the other and spends time learning each. I took to a brush but not so much a pen. I’ve seen people pick up a brush and grow frustrated and put it down forever. Manga Studio eliminates that frustration.

A novice can make a perfect thick to thin ink line on the first try. The skill needed to use the tool is minimal. That doesn’t mean the novice will know what he is doing and do a nice job but it does mean he doesn’t have to spend time learning to make the most basic marks with his pen or brush. The program also makes hatching and crosshatching marks that it would take even more time and practice to learn. All this is right out of the box with a minimal learning curve.

Add those things together, a program that makes inking simpler to learn, drawing aids, a computer screen you can draw on, and then throw in how easy it is to correct mistakes on a computer compared to ink on paper and it’s no wonder so many new cartoonists are embracing making comics without pen, paper, and pencil. Besides the initial costs it’s easier to get started.

This all brings me to wonder about the state of original art in the comic world. I and many others collect the original pen and ink art used to make comic books. With digitally created art such work doesn’t exist. Will it in the future? Sure the vast majority of comic art is still ink on paper but for how long? More and more artist who learned to draw on computer and have no idea how to use physical world tools will emerge but will they ever be the majority? I have no idea. We’ll see what the future brings.