Let's talk about... handling art

[t_orzechowski]

Fantastic! This should be posted as boilerplate at NinjaLettering, as well as somewhere here in the Forums! Thank you so much!

[Kep!]

I agree. It's pinned for cause.

I have given clients a guide for years on how to send me the art...including the sizes I expect. It makes it clear how to do it. What I also do to encourage this is suggest they will be charged more if I have to do it...it's something I'm perfectly capable of doing, and I am happy to, but it takes time and that means it costs money. Most folks send me the correct sizes right away now.

[Clem Robins]

Marvel and DC and Image are great about sending properly sized artwork. the smaller publishers, less so. which is unfortunate for them; if they got the artwork right, and used a bounding box, they could set up the pages in InDesign automatically.

[Scribbly]

=Thomas Mauer]One thing I've learned is that the majority of artists aren't technically minded and don't really want to learn the nuts and bolts either. They just want to draw. So making printsize specs and how to get there as easy as possible is the best solution.

You have a good point here.
The 99% of the artists don’t even know how to calculate
the balloon’s size in a panel page.
More than less, they know, or are interested in resize the full page.
Somebody else will take care of that.

= Kep! ] I'm perfectly capable of doing, and I am happy to, but it takes time and that means it costs money. Most folks send me the correct sizes right away now.

This is the same for the artists.
It cost money and time for them too.

[Clockman89]

Originally Posted by Scribbly

This is the same for the artists.
It cost money and time for them too.

But if they got it right in the first place, it wouldn't cost anyone any extra time or money.

*whistles and steps back out of forum*

[Scribbly]

Originally Posted by Clockman89

But if they got it right in the first place, it wouldn't cost anyone any extra time or money.

True.
But many of the folks don't even like to scan their own artwork.

Not talking about the ones who don't even care in buying a proper scanner.
Now, tell them about buying a graphic program for resizing their artwork.

[Thomas Mauer]

Originally Posted by Scribbly

This is the same for the artists.
It cost money and time for them too.

The difference is that if artists rely on others to deal with their wrongly sized pages, they are wasting not only that other person's time, they're wasting theirs as well.

With missing bleed art, the resized page has to go back to the artist and they have to go into Photoshop to wing it digitally. If pages are totally out of whack, it'll have to be their final decision how to rework panels, or in the worst case scenario they have to redraw entire pages.

Even if all pages are correctly sized and you just need to rely on a simple Photoshop action to output printsize pages, relying on others holds up the production chain: Either the colorist or the letterer has to wait until the other guy has found the time to do it and send them on.

Resizing pages right after they've been scanned in and cleaned up is the most efficient way to go about it.

[Jason Arthur]

That's one of the things that really screwed me up as an artist (yeah, I used to draw too). I used to work at print size and drew my ass off. Loved it. Then one day, at a comic convention, someone tells me that everyone works on 11x17 sheets of bristol.

So naturally I switched and my work suffered for it. I wasn't used to drawing so large and should have just stopped right there, but I spent years trying to adjust to larger size drawing.

Now I can draw one panel at a time if I want. Scan it in and assemble a page. But I letter so many other people's work now that it's hard to find time for my own art.

If only I could find a way to make time go slower all around me...

-- J

[Clem Robins]

if that's your problem, jason, you should consider doing what Gil Kane and many others did: draw your pictures at reproduction size, and then blow them up to original art size. slap the xerox on a light box, and finish them in ink. that's how Gil worked for the last twenty years of his life.

Vincent Giaranno's book "Comics Crash Course" outlines a slightly different method.

[Kep!]

Scribbly, I think what everyone here is trying to say is "it ain't my job man, but I'll gladly do it for a price". Crass as that sounds, it's true. It is the artist's job (or artists' jobs) to make sure their work is ready for primetime. As the letterer, I'm the last person who should be trying to fix whacked out pages...the penciler should do it, the inker has it in his own best interest to do it and the colorist is ALREADY doing the work...he might as well save it correctly and call it a day. If the art is not ready for print by the time it gets to me, then they have got serious issues with their work-flow. At the end of the production cycle is NOT the time to fix something as basic as wonky artwork.

[Kep!]

Originally Posted by Clem Robins

if that's your problem, jason, you should consider doing what Gil Kane and many others did: draw your pictures at reproduction size, and then blow them up to original art size. slap the xerox on a light box, and finish them in ink. that's how Gil worked for the last twenty years of his life.

Vincent Giaranno's book "Comics Crash Course" outlines a slightly different method.

Dario Carrasco and several others now do the same thing. However, with the internet beingg the main medium for communication and the trasfering of art files, I don't think most even bother to upsize again after the scan, figuring the inker will take care of it. And, of course, with computer inking coming into it's own, it's completely possible for there to be no real ink (and if vector no real sizes) in the final product anyway.

[Scribbly]

Originally Posted by Kep!

Scribbly, I think what everyone here is trying to say is "it ain't my job man, but I'll gladly do it for a price". Crass as that sounds, it's true. It is the artist's job (or artists' jobs) to make sure their work is ready for primetime. As the letterer, I'm the last person who should be trying to fix whacked out pages...the penciler should do it, the inker has it in his own best interest to do it and the colorist is ALREADY doing the work...he might as well save it correctly and call it a day. If the art is not ready for print by the time it gets to me, then they have got serious issues with their work-flow. At the end of the production cycle is NOT the time to fix something as basic as wonky artwork.

Kep!, understood, but.

Actually, it is up to the person who manage and
is in "charge of the project" to require about the format, size and resolution in
what the final artwork should be presented and sent.
And is "up to him" to decide who is the person, as part of his art team, who's going to do this.

Blame them, and not the artist, when the artwork came in incorrect size,
resolution or format.
Because, is what they are requesting the artists to send is what the artists
are giving to you.
And not otherwise.
Having this person, the manager, doing his work right and beig clever and especific.
Not one, including the artists, should have problems in the line work.

[L Jamal]

Ultimately, it really depends on your relationship with your editor. I do a lot of fair amount of work for Mirage and have known my editor for over 10 years. When he sends me pages in the wrong format, I just fix it and keep moving. Since I'm doing graytones for them, I'm in there mucking with the file any way, so I just have a action that fixes all the files as I start. I email them the files as I finish them and no one has ever complained, so I continue to do so.

[Gonzogoose]

Originally Posted by Scribbly

Kep!, understood, but.

Actually, it is up to the person who manage and
is in "charge of the project" to require about the format, size and resolution in
what the final artwork should be presented and sent.
And is "up to him" to decide who is the person, as part of his art team, who's going to do this.

Blame them, and not the artist, when the artwork came in incorrect size,
resolution or format.
Because, is what they are requesting the artists to send is what the artists
are giving to you.
And not otherwise.

You're right in that the publisher, creator, printer, etc. should specify correct size, but in most cases it's a safe bet you'll need it at standard size for a regular comic. That's just common sense. But regardless, it's still best if the artist delivers whatever that size is at the beginning, like Kep so eloquently explained.

[JimCampbell]

Originally Posted by Scribbly

Blame them, and not the artist, when the artwork came in incorrect size,
resolution or format.

I can't agree with that. American comics are a pretty standard size -- the only thing that tends to vary significantly is the Live area. I don't think it's asking a lot of any artist to understand the nuts and bolts of their profession.

I recently received some B/W pages to use as positionals until the colorist got the final pages done, only to discover that these were: JPEGs, grayscale, and hadn't had the pencils properly erased from the boards after inking. Oh, and they were the wrong proportions.

I'm afraid I contacted the editor and suggested in no uncertain terms that if this particular artist expected to be paid like a professional, they should most definitely learn to submit their artwork like a professional.

Some things are fundamental basics that you're entitled to expect a professional to know how to do, and to actually do without being asked. If I hire a plumber, I don't expect him to come round to my house and then ask to borrow my tools because he didn't bring any of his own.

Cheers

Jim