Why drawing digitally is NAUGHTY 👀 (or is it?)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Good Ship Illustration - "Why drawing digitally is NAUGHTY 👀 (or is it?)"

Release Date: January 31, 2025

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Introduction: Addressing Digital Drawing Concerns

In this episode of The Good Ship Illustration, hosts Helen Stephens, Katie Chappell, and Tania Willis delve into the evolving landscape of digital illustration. The discussion is sparked by a thought-provoking question from Megan Vanderlei: “I just opened up the Microsoft Surface Pro I bought for digital drawing and I'm freaking out a little. Not only the expense though I bought refurbished, but a sense of cheating or something. Will this kill the joy of drawing on paper? Does anyone combine the analog and digital drawing worlds?” (00:40)

Combining Analog and Digital: Practices and Benefits

Katie introduces Megan's concern, opening the floor to explore how illustrators blend traditional and digital methods. Megan emphasizes the ubiquity of this hybrid approach, stating, “We all do it.” (01:16) She shares her personal workflow: drawing on paper, scanning layers, and refining in software like Photoshop or Affinity. This method allows for subtle adjustments without overhauling the entire piece.

Tania adds that integrating digital tools doesn’t necessarily diminish the analog experience. She explains how digital platforms enable complex compositions without the messiness of physical mediums, such as watercolors: “There’s so much that could go wrong... but once you’ve scanned it in, you can move things around, change colors, and enhance contrasts.” (02:50) This flexibility fosters creativity while maintaining the integrity of the original artwork.

Tools of the Trade: Digital Devices and Software

The hosts compare various digital tools, highlighting the differences between devices like the Microsoft Surface Pro and the iPad. Megan remarks on the similarity between the Surface Pro and iPad, noting their versatility for digital drawing (00:58). Tanya shares her preference for Wacom tablets over others, admiring the sensitivity of the Apple Pencil but acknowledging her familiarity with Wacom and Photoshop.

Katie points out that transitioning to digital doesn’t equate to cheating: “It’s not cheating.” (03:37) She underscores that digital drawing is merely another tool in an illustrator's arsenal, not a shortcut or inferior to traditional methods.

Navigating Choice: Maintaining Creative Voice in a Digital Landscape

A significant part of the discussion revolves around the overwhelming choice digital platforms offer. Tanya and Megan stress the importance of limiting tool options to preserve a cohesive creative voice. Megan suggests, “If you’re making something digitally, it’s still handmade because it’s your hand, your eyes, your brain.” (03:19)

Katie highlights the necessity of disciplined tool selection to avoid chaotic and unfocused artwork: “You could get some horrible color things going on... you need to choose your favorite brushes and stick to them.” (07:16) Tania concurs, advocating for a curated brush and color library to ensure consistency across projects (09:08).

The Human Touch: AI and Maintaining Handmade Quality

The conversation shifts towards the impact of AI on digital illustration. Tanya references a Bright Agency review, noting a market shift towards hand-drawn imagery over AI-generated content: “There is a kind of return to that human mark and fallibility...” (13:06). This trend underscores the value clients place on the authenticity and emotional depth of handmade work.

Megan echoes this sentiment, expressing a personal preference for handmade qualities: “My eyes just crave handmade... you can really see the human in it.” (13:43) The hosts agree that while digital tools offer precision, the human element remains irreplaceable in creating emotionally resonant art.

Joy of Creation: Analog vs. Digital Experiences

A recurring theme is the intrinsic joy of drawing, whether digital or analog. Megan shares her journey of initially enjoying digital methods but later missing the tactile experience of working with paper: “I felt a bit headachy and dizzy from being on my screen too much.” (14:29) Katie concurs, suggesting that digital tools can sometimes detract from the pure joy of drawing: “It’s nice to be unplugged, isn’t it?” (14:31)

Tanya humorously relates her over-reliance on digital undo functions to a near-driving accident, highlighting the importance of embracing imperfection: “If you're making work with a continual undone ness, your perfectionism... you could spend a whole day just doing Apple Undo and end up with one line on a piece of paper.” (16:15) This anecdote underscores the value of commitment and spontaneity in analog drawing.

Final Thoughts: Embracing Both Worlds

In wrapping up, the hosts affirm that combining analog and digital methods enriches the creative process rather than diminishes it. Katie reassures listeners that integrating digital tools won't kill the joy of drawing on paper: “It’s not cheating, but it is a tool and you might get bored of it as well and just go back to drawing.” (16:50)

Megan and Tanya conclude by emphasizing the importance of flexibility and personal preference in choosing the right tools for one's artistic journey. The episode encourages illustrators to explore digital options without fear, ensuring that their unique creative voices remain at the forefront.

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Notable Quotes:

• Katie: “It’s not cheating.” (03:37)
• Megan: “We all do it.” (01:16)
• Tania: “There is a kind of return to that human mark and fallibility...” (13:06)
• Megan: “My eyes just crave handmade... you can really see the human in it.” (13:43)
• Tanya: “If you're making work with a continual undone ness... you could spend a whole day just doing Apple Undo and end up with one line on a piece of paper.” (16:15)

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This episode provides a comprehensive exploration of the interplay between digital and analog illustration, offering valuable insights for illustrators seeking to navigate and harmonize both realms in their creative careers.

Transcript

[Katie]

We had a brilliant question on the Facebook group. It's the private students only Facebook group for find your creative voice, fly or freak flag. But it's such a good question that we thought we'd bring it here as well.

[Megan]

Yeah, read it out, Katie.

[Katie]

So Megan Vanderlei said, I just opened up the Microsoft Surface Pro I bought for digital drawing and I'm freaking out a little. Not only the expense though I bought refurbished, but a sense of cheating or something. Will this kill the joy of drawing on paper? Does anyone combine the analog and digital drawing worlds?

[Megan]

Do you think the Microsoft Surface Pro is like an iPad? Do you think it's a similar.

[Katie]

It looks like. Yeah, we did a little Google and it looks like a foldy uppy iPad thing.

[Megan]

Oh, it's so good. What a brilliant question. What's the last bit of it? Does anybody combine analog and digital? Yeah, everybody.

[Katie]

We're all doing it.

[Megan]

Yeah, Everybody. Well, not every. Obviously not everybody. But it's so common. Lots of people do. I do. I like to draw on paper, scan in the layers and then put it into Photoshop or Affinity. Sometimes the whole picture is exactly right, but I've drawn the seagull in the wrong place or something. So I scan it in and I just move the seagull across. Tiny things. Tiny things. I definitely don't go in and alter everything on Photoshop or Affinity, but I tweak. We all do, don't we?

[Katie]

We all do, yeah. I find it way easier to plan with pencil on actual paper. Like plan have ideas but then take a photo of it and whip it into my iPad and then do it from there.

[Tanya]

But yeah, if you can copy that composition perfectly somehow there's a. There can be a warp that goes on when you start off by drawing either on a tablet or in Photoshop on your screen. I mean personally I, I use Wacom tablets. So you're doing that kind of indirect way of drawing on a pad but looking at the screen and it's not ideal. When I look at. I enviously look at everyone on Procreate with Procreate with the amazing Apple Pencil. That's so much. I think it's way more sensitive than the Wacom, but it's what I've got used to and the Photoshop interface and I've always worked with it, but it would be a mix of either using Photoshop brushes to replicate the way I painted and drew or scanning in textures like you were doing and layering it and using multiply layers. There's so many things you can do that, help you build up a picture that's perhaps quite complex. And if you were doing all that in watercolor, a scene with 10 people in it in a street, there's so much that could go wrong. And that that image would then be ruined by, I don't know, drip of ink or you'd have to lay paper on top to repair it. But once you've scanned it in and you can kind of start to finish off things, move things around a bit, change some of the color hues and stop things being either if the color's a bit flat and you want to make it more punchy, or you want the contrast, there's a lot you can do in Photoshop to help that. It's all by degrees, isn't it as well?

[Megan]

I've done whole books completely on paper with absolutely nothing digital on. I've done whole books entirely digital with nothing on paper and everything in between. So I think it's completely up to you. It's just another tool, isn't it? You drawing with a wack and pencil or an apple pencil or scanning your drawings in. It's just another tool.

[Katie]

It's not cheating.

[Megan]

It's not cheating, no. That was part of her question, wasn't it?

[Katie]

I think it's easy to feel like that, especially if you've been had it drummed into you or you've got to draw fill sketchbooks, which is really valuable and important. But then when you get to, yeah, there's nothing wrong with drawing digitally.

[Tanya]

And also in terms of being paid for your time, you've got to find a workflow that makes the most of that. And there's, you know, digital interfaces are make that so much better. I mean, I remember Marion deshaw showing me where she was doing her Bob books. And Bob is a quite a simple character, just made of a few elements. She paints out a few bobs and then she paints out lots of legs and feet and different heads and eye positions and things like that, and then kind of puts them all together so that the book is a lot easier to do because she can just use bits of different leg positions to show Bob walking or kneeling or jumping without redrawing him from scratch every single time. And that makes total sense, doesn't it?

[Megan]

I think it's. I think when you say handmade versus digital, I always want to find another way of wording that, because if you're making something digitally, it's still handmade because even if you're holding a Wacom pen, it's still your Hand and your eyes and your brain. So it's not hand work, handmade versus digital. It's just, shall I use a tool on paper or shall I use a tool with a screen? Seems like a better way of wording. It might cut out the guilt because it's still you, your brain, your eyes, your hand.

[Katie]

And you still have to be very. You still have to have skill, don't you? Because I know we've talked about color in the past and you see when somebody starts using the iPad, if they haven't got color going on, because you've got a choice of every single color on that disc, you could get some horrible color things going on. Tanya's made a workshop on our freebies page, by the way, for a color workshop, and it's called the Genius Color Workshop, I think. And that'll help you get your head wrapped around colour.

[Tanya]

I keep thinking. Yeah, I'd love to do a link between that. The colour workshop where we work with paint with just two colours and white paint, and because that constraint, analogue constraint, as you're saying, Katie, creates really interesting work because you have a certain amount of lack. Well, it's a lack of choice. Whereas once you're on screen and you can use any color in the world and your palettes go completely haywire. But I'd love to do a digital version of that paint thing. I've seen people say that they've done.

[Katie]

The color workshop using actual blobs of paint to get the colors. They've taken a photo of it and then used the color picker tool in Procreate to use their colors that they made analog. But it would be so cool to do an iPad one or a digital version.

[Tanya]

It'd be pretty easy to do it as well. Just how would you do it? You just use multiply layers, wouldn't you? You pick two colors and overlap them and then do the transparency.

[Megan]

That's what I did.

[Tanya]

Transparency.

[Megan]

Made a book on procreate. I just chose three colors on Procreate. Never used a different color on Procreate. And I just made layers that overlapped and had different transparencies so that you could have a tiny bit of blue over overlapping a quite dense yellow. So then you would get a very like limey green. Or then I would maybe up the transparency of the yellow and make the blue dense and then you get a very bluey green.

[Tanya]

Yeah.

[Megan]

So it's the same theories. You doing your color workshop with tubes of paint, but digital. We should definitely do a workshop.

[Tanya]

Yeah, that would be great to do the digital version of the Color Workshop. But it brings that thing back to choice as well. Like you could go crazy with the brushes and weigh and use a mixture of way too many brushes in an image, which would stop it feeling. I can't think of the word just designed and planned hang together.

[Megan]

You definitely need to choose your favorite brushes and stick to them.

[Katie]

Yeah, and sometimes playing around with the sensitivity and the pressure because I see a lot of people, like when I try to do graphic recording scribing, they'll have a pen where it's like got a very tapered end. It looks like you'd never use a brush pen like that drawing in real life. You'd use like a nice chunky, inky pen. Like a. I don't know, like a Posca pen or something that just abruptly ends. It doesn't taper off and yeah, things like that.

[Megan]

You can go into your brush settings as well. So I download brush like the Vivian Mildew Burger. Brushes are brilliant and she's just brought some out this new year. I've just downloaded them. They look amazing. But sometimes I will download some brushes and they don't. Not her brushes, but some brushes don't feel quite right. And you can go into the settings of the brushes and you can adjust how they feel and then practice drawing with them. And you can come up by doing that your own brush. Because I think one of the problems is you see work made on Procreate and you can actually recognize the brush. Yes, that's all that's disappointing.

[Tanya]

It's a bit like, you know, when you got electronic keyboards and you had certain sounds on them. You could recognize a sound in a song like, oh, they've just used that sample. But it's all back down to being kind of clear and rigid about choices and almost replicating your studio. Say you've only got four decent brushes and you keep going back to the same four brushes and you've got some tubes of paint, but you really love that same tube over and again and you keep mixing it with other colors. Because of the lack of choice or the lack of infinity and choice in your studio, you make much more cohesive images. And it can, you know, on a procreate you can just go nuts or on Photoshop. So you spend the first six months trying out every single thing, making chaotic images that don't seem to have a design or visual decision taken about them. And no, no rules applied to them.

[Megan]

I feel like you've got to use the same rules that you use on paper. So if you get an image down, don't keep going back in and overworking it. Live with the things that went wrong in the picture because they've prob. Do something important emotionally to the drawing. Don't zoom in. Don't like, really zoom in on one area and draw in detail in that area and then pull back out, because your eye will always be drawn to that little bit where you did a very, very detailed bird with a smaller pen. Looks completely different to the rest of the picture.

[Tanya]

Yeah. Need to keep a brush library and a color library. So when you go back to an image, say you did something for a client or for yourself. It's a set of images, and then you want to add to that. You have to remember what the brushes were that you used and what the color is. Easy to use the colors because you just eyedrop them again and set up a new palette. But if you can't remember the pencil or the brush that you used to get that feeling again is quite difficult. But I'm not organized enough to set up these palettes, so I just sort of wing it. But I love the idea that you just make very limited option palettes for all these things like texture brush, pen and color, and put and file those with the work.

[Katie]

Yeah, I suppose it's going to be easier if you go. If you're going from traditional to digital, that transition is probably less clunky if you have a firmer idea of what your work is and what you. What you create, what your freak flag is and what your creative voice is, rather than going into the iPad and be like, what am I doing here? Because that's when I feel like you get the crazy rainbow drawings and horrible brushes and stuff. But then, I don't know, maybe for starting out on the iPad or digital with Surface Pro, whatever it is, figuring out your creative voice from there. Do you think it's harder because you've got more choice?

[Tanya]

Yeah.

[Megan]

Yeah. I think it's much easier to start on paper and really, really play on paper and kind of work out what your work is. That maybe we think that because that's the way we've done it.

[Katie]

I was wondering, I don't know, is.

[Tanya]

It our perspective and it's not right. Perhaps maybe spend six months on some kind of digital software berserking until you get really bored and start going, God, oh, such a cliche rainbow. Like you say, that brush is so showy and I don't want to use it. Get it out of your system. And then I. But if it still Presents you with so much choice. And if you haven't learned how to limit choice to create a strength to your voice, it's much easier to do that with paper.

[Megan]

But there must be so many students coming out of art school who just went digital immediately and have done everything digital. And we probably have seen their work and love it. So maybe, maybe we had endless choice when we went in the art shop, you know. Yeah, it's really interesting, but you can.

[Tanya]

See people who, you know, have always been digital and they do have these clear, you know, clear design ideas that you can see on an Instagram. They've used the same palette for at least a year. Like, wow, good on you. You know, you've decided what it is. You like, you kept to it, you've used the same texture in combination with something else. So it's a kind of. I think graphic designers are very good at thinking like that because they know that they have to figure out what three fonts have been used on a project, what two or three colors. So there's those limitations. If your brain can think like that, it's okay. But it's just tempting to get all the toys in the sweet. All the toys in the toy shop and use all of them at once on the same picture.

[Katie]

Yeah, I feel like the iPad is less forgiving as well. Maybe like when you mess around in a sketchbook, it's a bit more. But then again maybe I do just think that because from a time before iPads were useful for drawing on sketchbooks.

[Tanya]

So it's AI thing as well that you know, sometimes digital. Well, there's AI and digital painting sometimes has that fuzzy sheen.

[Katie]

Well, it's too perfect.

[Tanya]

Yeah, it's like a. You can smell it in an image.

[Megan]

I think my eyes just crave handmade and that by that I mean I don't just mean stuff on paper, but I mean handmade digitally or on paper. But you can really see the human in it. You really, really crave that.

[Tanya]

I read this end of year review from Bright Agency where they were addressing the, the AI question and they said it's going to be quite difficult for people who produce very highly rendered, highly colored, realistic sort of. It could be fantasy realistic imagery because that's what AI is eating up at the moment and clients are really looking for a lot more hand drawn imagery whether again that could be on procreate and it's the way you draw. So there is a kind of return to that human mark and fallibility and you know, rather than hyper polished stuff which is Is going to struggle.

[Megan]

Yeah.

[Katie]

It's good to rebel against the AI stuff.

[Megan]

Yes.

[Tanya]

Does.

[Megan]

Does our. Sorry, I've forgotten her name, our letter writer. Does she also ask if it'll take the fun out of her work? She did.

[Katie]

Let's see.

[Megan]

That's really interesting because I. I got really into working digitally and found it a lot of fun while I was learning it and then made a book on it using just my iPad. And. And then afterwards thought, actually, I don't think I enjoyed that as much as being in my studio with the rain pouring on the window above my head, dog at my feet, pieces of paper pin. It wasn't the same experience. I felt a bit headachy and dizzy from being on my screen too much.

[Katie]

It's nice to be unplugged, isn't it?

[Megan]

Yeah. For me it did tick. Even though I love it and there's so much great about working digitally and I like the results you can get. Did take some of the fun out of it for me. And I went back to paper.

[Katie]

Yeah. Megan did say, will this kill the joy of drawing on paper? So it's the opposite. Maybe it makes the joy of drawing on paper more joyful because, like, when you get an ebook and you get excited about having a Kindle, but then when you go back to a real book and you can sniff the pages and smell the ink, you're like, oh, so good.

[Tanya]

It's so surprising that she asked that question in that direction.

[Megan]

Yeah. I think I'm a bit muddled. Is she saying, would I lose the joy of paper if I love the digital? Is that what she said?

[Tanya]

That's what I thought she said.

[Megan]

Yeah.

[Katie]

A sense of cheating or something. Will this kill the joy of drawing on paper? Does anyone combine them?

[Tanya]

Wow. No.

[Megan]

No, I don't think it'll kill the joy of paper. Yeah. How?

[Katie]

I don't think you can kill the joy of drawing on paper. It's not possible. It's always joyful.

[Tanya]

I could really do with an art club right now.

[Katie]

Yeah, right now.

[Tanya]

Because it is just to suddenly draw on paper for playful reasons. So good. It is a revelation when you've been slogging away, doing vectors on a screen.

[Katie]

Or sliding around on that glass screen and it's like, ugh.

[Tanya]

Yeah, exactly.

[Katie]

Frying your eyeballs.

[Tanya]

Just accidentally getting some cheap paper and the ink spreads all over it because it's not very good quality. Oh, lovely. Yeah.

[Megan]

Accidents. You need to be able to keep the accidents. If you go digital, you need to keep the accidents and don't edit them out. Yeah.

[Tanya]

Actually, once I worked on the computer for so long that when I was out driving and I nearly had an accident, I thought, don't worry, I'll just do Apple's Ed.

[Megan]

Come on, Zed.

[Katie]

Come on, Zed.

[Tanya]

Come on, Zed. I was like, I've been taken over by the.

[Megan]

That's so funny.

[Tanya]

Apple undo.

[Megan]

Yeah.

[Tanya]

And you think everything can be undone. So if you're making work with a continual undone ness, your perfectionism and your, you know, a bit of inadequacy or imposter syndrome, you could spend a whole day just doing Apple Undo and end up with one line on a piece of paper, as opposed to the. The commitment to drawing and drawing a mark that can't be undone. Wow. I want to go and do that right now.

[Katie]

Yeah. We could talk about this for hours.

[Tanya]

Yeah.

[Katie]

But in answer to your question, lots of people combine it and know it won't take the fun away from drawing on paper. And it's not cheating, but it is.

[Tanya]

A tool and you might get bored of it as well and just go back to drawing.

[Katie]

Yeah, that's all fine.

[Tanya]

Okay.

[Megan]

Okay, bye.