Now this is something that just boggles my mind whenever I encounter it.
To those who don’t know, I run a forum site for budding illustrators who wants to pick my brain and others on the field of comic book-style illustration and pinup (generally) and to better improve themselves and their craft.
Whenever a new member asks me a particular question on, let’s say, drawing hands, I often first ask that I see a sample on how they do it themselves so that I can better assess their skill and thus give them the appropriate advice.
But they tell me that they don’t have a scanner for them to transfer their pencilled images to the computer. Now why is that? I know that some prefer to be purely a digital artist (meaning all their sketches and doodles are directly done using a tablet and a graphics program), but if these individuals can afford to buy a tablet, why not a scanner?
I cannot imagine my work without a scanner as part of my arsenal. Its the first thing I bought right after I built my first PC. During my time, scanners are a bit expensive, but I managed to get one. Now, there are alot of very affordable scanner devices out there.
I, myself, own a Canon™ Lide 25 scanner. Its cheap and it works for me in dealing with transferring my pencils to Photoshop™. I bought mine at around $52 US. That’s how cheap it is, and it works for me.
So I got to ask, in this world of digital art, why don’t you own a scanner?
February 5th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
I have a scanner - Somewhere - but I lack the space to keep it ready for use, not to mention a complete lack of power sockets.
I can, however, completely see where you’re coming from. It appears as if newer artists have decided they have little or no need for traditional means - It’s sad in a way.
I don’t tend to use a scanner, because I don’t tend to draw traditionally due to lack of working space, I barely have room for A4 on either desk.
February 20th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
I’ve got a really old crappy cannon… the problem is it’s one of the models that works with MAC os9… and there aren’t any drivers for it for OSX… and I’ve just not picked up another one. So… I’m actually still using an OS 9 terminal just for scans. Use what ya got, right?
But I find that even this little snag has prompted me to generally work in a completely digital setting.