the paintbrush is my friend.

This is an illo I did for an educational Take-home reading book a few months ago. It's a bit of a board game - every night that the child reads they move ahead one square until they have been all around Australia and New Zealand and receive notoriety and admiration from all their peers. Anyway, this was done in B&W for the book, and I just added the colour tonight so that I could put this in my folio; it looked a bit bare in B&W.

I used Painter IX for the colour mostly because I didn't want to have to redo the linework and already had the lines scanned in. It was interesting to use it again after only having used actual paint and paper for my illos for quite a few months now. Although I am happy enough with the outcome, the process is so different. not so much in the way I would colour it, but how i feel when I'm colouring it.

First of all, there's the physical effects it has on me. This doesn't seem to happen as much when doing other computer work, maybe because it's not as intensive, but just one hour (or so) of Painter IX illustration and my shoulder hurts, my elbow hurts, my neck feels stiff, and my hand feels like "the claw" from gripping the wacom stylus.

Then, there's my attitude. Halfway through, I found myself getting bored, and wanting to be finished. Bored?? okay, some parts of doing anything with detail can be tedious, but I was amazed by how quickly that feeling came over me. I don't think I've ever been bored with painting.

So I think it's obvious where my preferences lie. I'm not knocking Painter - it's a fantastic program, has great effects, and I might still use it for quick & dirty jobs. (I find I use Photoshop a lot for rejigging compositions - scan in, move around, print out, trace - much easier than redrawing the exact same thing in a different position) But, as far as body-mind-spirit enjoying the process of illustration... the paintbrush is my friend.