George WebberArtist - Cartoonist - Illustrator

Drawing & Making Comics on the iPad 

So the question is, can a comic book created or better still a printable comic book be made entirely on the Apple iPad?

Well so far the answer seems to be Yes, No, Sort of, Maybe. Confused?, ya me too.

Ok, so let me give you the break down. The first step was coming up with a short all be it stupid story, not too tough for a headcase like me.

Next you'll need some Art, this is where thing can get tricky as the iPad can be great for drawing but still has limitations, if you don't try to go too wild it'll work.

I used Apps like Brushes and Sketchbook Pro to draw a few random Batman test images while testing those apps (there are several others that work quite well too, but I'll get into that another time).

So I've got some Batman sketches I've done on the iPad and a few photos of a lady freind (Natasha Yi) that I downloaded off the web in Safari onto the iPad.

Next I need Panels, Word Balloons and Text.

All three of these I managed in a App called CartoonStrip CS, CartoonStrip is still pretty new and has a ways to go before it's a real comic book maker, but it has the basic tools to pull it off, not bad for a Version 1.01 App.

NOTE: CartoonStrip only does Horizontal pages at this time!

So, CartoonStrip ... just select a template page of panels, get your images from the iPads Albums by clicking on the "X' in the panels, move scale and rotate the images as you please.

Sadly you can only scale UP and not down, nor can you put more than one image in a panel as there's no Alpha Channels or Layers, it would be pointless anyway.

Next put in some Word Balloons and type some text. The "Tail" of the Word Balloons can be grabbed and dragged to any place and length ... although it does take some practice to get the "tail" and not the picture.  It would be nice if you could "lock" the pictures in place, but that's not an option either at this time. 

NOTE: Once you save a Page in CartoonStrip, it becomes a jpg and can no longer be edited. So be sure everything it right before you save or you'll have to make the page all over again. I know I had to make several pages two or three times to get them 100% right.

You can read my goofy comics pages here , then continue to read the rest of the story.

Just click the cover image to open it and click arrows to change pages.

OK, so that's the comic pages look as they come out of CartoonStrip.

The images are iPad Screen Resolution JPGs, so they can be printed and look ok, not fabulous super crisp high res, but not too bad either. I quite was surprized at how they looked, I didn't expect anything much given I had streched some images quite a bit. But they where pretty good.

For the next step I had to go out of the iPad and into the computer in order to make a PDF file from all my pages. I'm not aware of a PDF writter App at this time, if there is, then even more of the process can be done in the iPad, which would be great.

Anyway, it was a simple task, just rename the images in page order 01, 02, 03, etc and make a multi page PDF.

Setting the PDF to print a Booklet was fairly brainless too (borrowed the use of a nice high end laser printer for two sided printing, sweet )

Finally if you have the iBooks app on you iPad you can drag and drop your PDF into iTunes under Books and Presto! your PDF will go to your iPad (after a sync) and you can read you comic on your iPad.

Pretty freakin' cool if I do say so myself

 Follow @NoCashComics on Twitter !

Don't forget to Subscribe to the
No Cash Comics Feed

And be sure to visit the
NoCashComics Gift Shop
T-Shirts, Mugs, Bags, Sneakers, Skateboard Decks and tons of other goodies ! 

 Using the iPad for Art? Part 1 

When the iPad was first announced I like many other artist wondered if maybe this could be a light weight moble art studio or sketch pad.

The more I read about the iPad at that time the more I had doubts that it would or could, but it was a bit too soon to tell for sure.

Since then I seen several iPad add-on gadgets and many apps that made me interested in the iPad for other uses, but at the same time I still wanted to draw on the iPad.

So ever since I got my iPad I've been trying to find what Drawing Apps, Stylus and other gadgets work together well enough to say the iPad is a plausable mobile art studio or at least as a functional sketch pad.

So far I've been testing three brands of stylus, eight drawing apps, three photography apps and several iPad gadgets like the Apple USB port adapter and some others.

And I'll be writing about the Apps and gadgets as part of this on going series, but for now let's start with the Stylus.

The Pogo Sketch Stylus

Like most people it seems I tried the Pogo Sketch Stylus first.

 http://www.tenonedesign.com/sketch.php

The short version of my thoughts on the Pogo are as follows, if you want something small to just poke around your iPhone or iPad's screen, it's fine, but if your looking for an art tool ... maybe not so much.

At the same time I can't totally rule out the Pogo as an art tool as it largely depends on how you feel about the following items.

The first thing is the Pogo is skinny, much like a PDA stylus which for some people might be fine, but for larger hands it could be a problem.

Of course the Pogo has a pocket clip and a top knot with a hole for tethering,but while the body is metal, the clip is plastic and at $ 15.00 bucks feels too cheap. Sure I've seen it listed for as little as eight bucks and even then it just doesn't add up for me, it feels like paying ten bucks for a 49 cent Bic ball point pen.

The next thing is the little spongy tip has a "drag" feel to it when moving on the screen, some people like a little drag, some don't mind, others may not like it at all.

In my opinion it's not huge drag but it can be felt and I don't care for it when doing broad strokes, on smaller detail work it's not so bad. In fact sometimes the Pogo is just what you need to do detail work as the small tip is pretty easy to see around and place where you want it, but still not great.

The big issue I have with the Pogo is the sponge tip doesn't seem to hold up to the scrubbing motion that many artist may use, it really seems to get compressed or wear down. I noticed a change in the shape of the tip after about a week of some what heavy use.

Next up is the Dagi.

I don't own a Dagi yet, but I did try out my friend Doc Popular's for a little while.

The first thing I noticed is it really requires you to hold it in a certain position and seems like your forced to work a slower pace. It also seems to need a firmer touch to work.

It could be I wasn't really used to the unusual feel of the Dagi's harder plastic tip, however that nice little sight glass pinpoint might work well for smaller precision placement for detail work once getting used to it.

I'll have to get one to test it out more to make a final determination on it and that could be a trick in itself as they are only really sold in Asia and through eBay.

http://www.dagi.com.tw/front/bin/home.phtml

The final stylus we have is the Targus.

The Targus is the stylus I currently use and like quite a bit.

It's body is thick enough that it feels like a nice pen, although it is shorter than a standard pen, it's not too much shorter so it still fits the hand pretty well. It also has a nice weight and balance to it.

Anyway like the Pogo the Targus features a pocket clip and a top knot with a hole so it can be tethered somehow if you wish, the diffrence is it's all metal.

Now the most important part of any stylus is the tip and the Targus has a rounded soft rubber like material that with a light or heavy touch glides quickly and smoothly on the iPad. On most of the apps I've tried the Targus response is quick even using a soft touch which is nice.

If the Targus tip has a flaw it's that being soft you'll tend to "squish" it down on the screen harder than you need to, but even then it moves quickly and doesn't wear down like like the Pogo. After a little use you'll get the feel for the Targus and it'll perform nicely.

The Targus has a much more natural angle like a pen or brush when drawing with it.

It seems Box Wave makes a stylus that's pretty much a twin for the Targus so I'll assume the results would be the same with the Box Wave, except that the Box Wave cost more.

All told I have to say as art tools each of these stylus may have a use, but for a good all around general purpose tool the Targus gets my money first.

BestBuy has them but at $ 15.00 bucks they go out of stock fast.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Targus+-+Stylus+for+Apple%26%23174%3B+iPad%26%23153%3B/1151337.p?id=1218226504600&skuId=1151337

Try the Targus, I think you'll like it.

 Follow @NoCashComics on Twitter !

Don't forget to Subscribe to the
No Cash Comics Feed

And be sure to visit the
NoCashComics Gift Shop
T-Shirts, Mugs, Bags, Sneakers, Skateboard Decks and tons of other goodies !