comic tools

Dave Kiersh



Basic Bio: I’m a librarian who tends to draw comics about “troubled youth”.
Comics: A Last Cry For Help
Website: www.davekcomics.com
Making comics since year of: 1997
Art education/schools attended: One year of art school was helpful.

Tools



I don’t use a pencil at all. Instead I do my rough drafts with the same pen that I’ll do the final version with. I trace over my roughs with the use of a light box. I find that I could never match the consistency from pencil to paper and that erasing is a nightmare. So I quit using pencils long ago. With the use of a light table, I can do multiple drafts with my Pigma brush pens and Pigma Microns 05 and 08. I simply use cheap Xerox paper because I end up doing lots of drafts. This works for me because I limit myself to 4 panels a page. If I wanted a page with more panels, I’d use a larger format. Also, copy paper is thin, which makes it more transparent. And I don’t have to worry about messing up and wasting it! I like the size too because it fits neatly on the scanner. For color I use Photoshop and draw with a wacom tablet. In referencing CMYK, I use a Color Index book for reference.

Tool timeline, starting from when you began drawing in any serious way until the present, and what spurred the changes: The use of a light table changed the way I worked. I started doing multiple drafts and in the process, my art developed into a cleaner style. Now I’m starting to draw directly into the computer using a wacom tablet. Using layers, it’s a very similar process.

What tools you'd never use, and why: A mechanical pencil. And Pen Nibs. Because the pencil is too predictable and the nibs are too unpredictable.