Page sizes

[just hades]

I do wish to print my comic one day but I am torn on page sizes.
Should I make them large enough for printing from the get go?
Or should I make them the size I desire and then blow them up for printing?

What do you recommend?

[Kaxen]

Blowing images up takes more work to fix up, so it would probably be better to work larger.

[megrar]

work big from the get-go. it is infinitely easier to shrink an image for whatever other use you have planned, than it is to take a small image and make it big. small to big gets blurry or pixelated. it never looks good. you're pretty much re-making the page when you have to clean up a blown up image.

[just hades]

alright.
I'll just have to get over my fear of working so big.
I am not used to it and it burns me out quicker.

[megrar]

Hades loves elephants

alright.
I'll just have to get over my fear of working so big.
I am not used to it and it burns me out quicker.

wear you out? you make it sound like you mean paper sizes, and not digital sizes.

if that's the case, there is another way.

draw whatever size you want, and scan it big. as in, 600 dpi and UP. 1200 dpi if you're working really small. then you'll still have the freedom to resize to whatever size you want.

the bigger your scan file, the more detail it retains. then your small-to-big won't be blurry or pixelated, it will just be very rough looking from having all the close up detail of the drawing itself.

this can be very charming if done well.

anyway, best of luck.

[just hades]

megrar

Oh I work digitally.
I just have a small tablet and large areas freak me out for some reason.

Thank you for the info.

[Kyousouka]

Hades loves elephants

Oh I work digitally.
I just have a small tablet and large areas freak me out for some reason.

Thank you for the info.

Depending on the program you use, you may be able to work zoomed out, zooming in only for the details. Photoshop tends to make icky lines when you work zoomed below 100%, but MangaStudio and SAI are fine zoomed out.


A small tablet can actually make working on large images easier, since you need less hand movement to produce a large stroke. So, I suspect the issue isn't in your tablet or your physical motions, but something more psychological, like dreading having to "fill" large areas with detail/visual interest. If that's the case, then remember that you don't have to do that at all. A large image doesn't have to be any more "detailed" than a small one, everything is just done on a larger scale. If you have the same density of detail per area of pixels on a large canvas as you would on a small one, it'll just look like noise in print.

I don't know what your workflow is, but have you tried doing a detailed sketch at a small size, detailed enough that all of the elements are there, not just the main/important ones, and then enlarging it and inking over that? With everything already there and scaled to the larger size, you might have an easier time working.

[just hades]

Kyousouka

Hades loves elephants

Oh I work digitally.
I just have a small tablet and large areas freak me out for some reason.

Thank you for the info.

Depending on the program you use, you may be able to work zoomed out, zooming in only for the details. Photoshop tends to make icky lines when you work zoomed below 100%, but MangaStudio and SAI are fine zoomed out.


A small tablet can actually make working on large images easier, since you need less hand movement to produce a large stroke. So, I suspect the issue isn't in your tablet or your physical motions, but something more psychological, like dreading having to "fill" large areas with detail/visual interest. If that's the case, then remember that you don't have to do that at all. A large image doesn't have to be any more "detailed" than a small one, everything is just done on a larger scale. If you have the same density of detail per area of pixels on a large canvas as you would on a small one, it'll just look like noise in print.

I don't know what your workflow is, but have you tried doing a detailed sketch at a small size, detailed enough that all of the elements are there, not just the main/important ones, and then enlarging it and inking over that? With everything already there and scaled to the larger size, you might have an easier time working.

I just wanted to say thank you.
I took your advice and my newer pages actually look so much better.
So,
thank you <3

[Xiam]

Hades loves elephants

alright.
I'll just have to get over my fear of working so big.
I am not used to it and it burns me out quicker.

Try zooming out a lot, so it looks small. Then you can worry about zooming in on details later to clean it up.

Just a thought. I like working small too, so that's how I like to do it.

EDIT: Oh, this is an old thread and it's been fairly resolved. Damn. emo