comic tools

Manuel Aguilera 

Comics: Beware of Doug (Lemon Icecream:Coming Soon)
Website:www.manuelaguilera.net
Making comics since year of: 2003
Art education/schools attended: BFA in Graphic Design form IFAC in Miami

Tools

Pencils: Office Depot Standard Click Pencils .5 lead. I'm starting to get into col-erase blue pencils for the forthcoming webstrips. It'd stop me from having to actually erase.

Inks: I used Higgins' Black magic for a while but I got over having to prep inks and then waiting for the company to change the formula and having to find a new mix. Now I just go straight for the Farber-Castell PITT Artist Pen. I do hear good things about speedball though.  

Brushes: Farber-Castell PITT Artist Brush Pens, I buy them by the gross.

Pens: Farber-Castell PITT Artist Pen size: M, S & B 

Paper: Hot press Strathmore Bristol 14/17 for comics making and cut in half 8.5/14 for comic strips.

Lettering: All done in QuarkXPress for comics and Photoshop for Strips. Blambot has the best comic fonts on the market. And for those just starting out they have good ones for free. I use Mighty ZEO for all of Doug.

Color: Photoshop for the comics work and Guache for illustrations

Layout/ Composition: I write a simple bulleted list of things I want to do with the story then  start drawing on copy paper full sized. I draw very rough with no real erasing and rough the dialog and ballons in as well. Those roughs get scanned in, the lettering, ballons and pannels all get done in Quark. At this stage I'll make edits as needed, juggling pannels around making figures bigger or smaller to fit text. These pages get printed out and traced and inked onto final boards.

Convention Sketches (when different from illustrations done in the studio): Farber-Castell PITT Artist Pen size: M, S & B onto 11/14 (same as my sketchbook) Strathmore Bristol. I also carry a Winsor-Newton compact watercolor tabs set that comes with a brush pen looking thing that has it's own water supply.

What tools you'd never use, and why: diping ink mostly because it's more work than it's worth mixing and letting it evaporate. Coldpress Bristol because it bleeds. Non-waterproof ink because you never know when it'll rain or you'll have the urge to watercolor something. Watercolor paper because it's bump and I don't like drawing on it or how it scans. I don't have a tablet YET but I hesitate to use it because eliminating the pen and paper will end the market for selling original pages.

And lastly, any advice you'd like to give: Always experiment and give things a try. If you use a lot of modern tools give the old ones a try. That goes backward too, new doesn't always mean bad. Next time you walk into your art store buy something totally new and try it out...something great could happen.