Should I color the drawings by hand then scan in or scan in then color on the computer?

Question

I pencil-drew a number of drawings for a children book. I am wondering which method will be easier and more effective: coloring the drawings by hand first then scanning them in the computer OR scanning in the black/white drawings and doing digital coloring?
For the first option, should it be crayons or color pencils?
For the second option, is there an electronic paint pad/brush that can hook up to a USB port?

I like to add that I am a pencil guy; I stay away from brushes. Please don't suggest I anything other than pencils or crayons.

Wow! Alison,thanks much. You are a pro.

Answer 1

I have had some really great results with printing photos in black and white on the computer and then using water colors or watered acrylics and painting them in. They look like real paintings. Make sure the ink is dry from printing before yo attempt to paint or the ink will bleed and mess up your print. Good luck

Answer 2

This is all actually up to personal preference. I'm an artist who switches mediums quite often and I color both on the computer and with physical materials such as colored pencils, watercolors and markers.
I will outright say from experience, you're going to have to do some color tweaking if you color the pictures then scan them in, as I've yet to use a scanner that shows the true colors of the picture I scanned.
Never EVER use crayons for a piece that is going to be professional(which I sorta assume this is since it's for a children's book). Crayons can look good in mixed media pieces, but as a whole...it's a HUGE no no.
Colored pencils can be nice. I suggest Prismacolors, as I own a lot of them and can't find any other pencils with as rich a color.
I also suggest maybe just trying some watercolors. They can be difficult to use, but no one is perfect with them the first day they try them out. It takes practice, and who knows. Maybe you'll find another medium you like to work with. A lot of illustrators use gauche, which is a type of Opaque watercolor. When you go to school to be an illustrator, that's the one major material you'll be working with, so it's always a good thing to learn to use something new. That, and as an artist, it's part of the challenge and excitement of being an artist to try new things and learn to master them.
If you wish to go the computer coloring route, yes, there is a "pad" you can hook up via USB. It is commonly referred to as a tablet, and Wacom is the company used by most artists. The cheapest tablet you will find is called the Graphire. You can usually find these in a 4X5'' at Best Buy or Comp USA and run for about $100-$150. Wacom also makes the Intuos tablet, which is another artist favorite and can run at $300 at the least, and the Cinteq, which is a monitor tablet and I think starts at $800.

As said, it's all a personal preference as to how you want to do it, not which one is easier. After all, art isn't supposed to be easy. It's working hard that makes the best pictures. :)

Answer 3

If it is a professional commission you would be better off letting the publisher's reprographic/artwork department scan your coloured images their high end scanners will outperform all the most expensive amateur scanners, especially on colour scans.

However if you go the other route, if your images are drawn at the same size they will eventually be printed, scan your black and white images at at least 600dpi as greyscale and clean up any specks and adjust the brightness and contrast until you have a true 100% black, then convert the file to CMYK (RGB has a larger gamut than CMYK meaning that some colours will not translate accurately) at this point you can reduce the resolution to 300dpi, now you are ready to add colours in a separate layer.

Resolution is vital – too low and the work will be unusable or will print pixellated and despite the options to increase it and the various interpolation softwares you cannot get an image of the same quality. The ideal figure you should aim for is that when placed in the artwork for the book the image should, if it set at 300dpi, be at 100%.

Answer 4

I must disagree with "Alison" that color crayons are som kind of big, "no-no."

Crayons are, merely, another color medium, to be used where the artist deeps appropriate. If the look of a children's book is to suggest the drawings were done by a child, then primitive, color crayon drawings are VERY appropriate. AND, since small children are very familiar with the look of crayon, there may be a level of comfort in seeing a book illustrated in such a way.

I would also suggest that you don't, simply, dismiss any medium, out of hand, because you don't "like" it. A good artist is not afraid to explore, and take his creativity in new directions. I was trained in using traditional drawing and lettering pen tips, but, in school, was encouraged to carve my own bamboo pen, ( which I used for many years) to "draw" with a scrap of cardboard, dipped in poster paint, and paint oils and acrylic with a pallette knife.

This exploration led me to try technical ink pens, like Rapidographs, and others.

Which leads me to your original question. My paid work is now, almost 100% digital. However, on the ocassion where I must create some illustration on paper, I will, lightly sketch our with pencil and then, ink in outlines before scanning. For this inking, I use ordinary Sharpie markers, both, fine point and the regular laundry marker point. I will, then, scan it and color on the computer using Adobe Photoshop, which is SOOOOO much cleaner and less messy than doing it in any wet media. (I used to color with art markers, which was pretty neat and not messy, but, the computer's colors NEVER dry out and never need replacing)

This, inking on paper and then scanning, only works if the illustration does not need to be scaled up to any significant size. If something DOES need to be rescaled, then, I scan the penciled sketch, and do a vector drawing in Adobe Illustrator. This software can do some very nice coloring, as well.

Answer 5

to each his own, but i have tried different things using the computer colors, paintbrushes etc. and have not found it to be as easy as coloring by hand. i would think color pencils if your trying to precise, crayons if your going outside the lines.
i bought a lexmark x1240 printer scanner at walmart's for $35.00 complete. it has a program that will let you do want you want with colors. i just tried mine, so i'm not guessing it can do this. you scan your picture then you can color it.
i know it seems to cheap to be for real BUT IT IS.
it's easy to use once you get used to it. i suggest you try this
before you buy anything else. you can not only scan things with this printer/scanner you can also enlarge or shrink things if you so choose. mine will be a year old next month.
i actually had them ship it to me instead of going to the store.
but why wait, go get one.
good luck to you.