Let's talk about... handling art

[L Jamal]

Originally Posted by Scribbly

They rather like to blame everybody, pencilers, inkers and colorists.
Accusing all of them of negligence and non-professionalism.

Not one is doing their job right, except them.
How do you call this?

The letterer is the final part of the process. If the bleed, trim and live areas of the art is not correct by the time it reaches the letterer, then EVERY ONE before that is negligent. This applies doubly so to the editor and penciller as they start the process and should make sure the correct document is being passed on. The others should work as checks in the system, but often they no very little about live and trim areas.

[Fred Duran]

Originally Posted by Scribbly

And, for the record, I never had problem about the size in of the Artwork I’ve sent.
Always I ask previously in what size and format the work should be sent.
And always I will be open for doing reasonable adjustments and corrections
of the work I am producing.

Originally Posted by Scribbly

Also, I have the Actions settled in my PhotoShop.

Basically, you just agreed that it's the artist's job to get sizing and formatting of the page right, in regards to trim and bleed and all that. Why are you still arguing that it's not the artist's job, when you yourself have just admitted that as an artist you do it? I'm not trying to be an asshole, I'm just curious. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

Originally Posted by Scribbly

They instead, like to twist everything what they are reading and blaming to everybody,
Everybody, except their project leader, (whomever he is) when receiving a work which came in a wrong format,

Nobody's twisting anything. Their argument is quite clear: the art should be the right size BEFORE it goes any further than pencils. If it gets to the letterer - literally the end of the assembly line - and it's not formatted correctly, then there IS a problem.

Originally Posted by Scribbly

Instead of calling immediately their project manager.....
Or charging extra for doing the needed adjustments.

That's what they ARE doing. And as long as they get paid, it's a pain in the ass for them to do, but they're getting compensated so they put up with it. It might be a stretch of me to say this, but I'd almost say that a letterer would rather get correctly-sized and proportioned art at the START, than have to screw around with trims and bleeds before they could start on their job, regardless of whatever extra they're charging you to fix it. Again, maybe a stretch, but personally, I'd rather have it right when I get it than have to fix it. That's just me.

Originally Posted by Scribbly

They rather like to blame everybody, pencilers, inkers and colorists.
Accusing all of them of negligence and non-professionalism.

Nobody's blaming anybody. Blaming makes it sound like it's finger-pointing, which is usually BS and not based off fact. But this is a FACT - the penciler is the first person to put any kind of art on the page. If the second person (the inker) gets a page that isn't formatted correctly, it's a FACT that the penciler messed up. And it's the inker's job as a member of the creative team to let the penciler know and get it fixed. Improperly formatted pages shouldn't get further than one person down the line before they're fixed.

Originally Posted by Scribbly

Not one is doing their job right, except them.
How do you call this?

I call it annoying as hell. Hypothetically, if I'm lettering a comic, it's because I'm good at it and because I enjoy doing it (it sure as hell isn't for the fame and fortune). If I have to do something menial that SHOULD have been done LONG before I even got the page, before I can get to the job that I enjoy and that I'm proficient at, it A) kinda turns me off from lettering it at that moment and B) kinda pisses me off because someone before me screwed up and either didn't know it or did know and didn't care enough to fix it or speak up. And as someone who is trying to break in and make a name for myself in this industry, I think that's both unprofessional and unacceptable.

-Fred

[Scribbly]

Originally Posted by Fred Duran

Basically, you just agreed that it's the artist's job to get sizing and formatting of the page right, in regards to trim and bleed and all that. Why are you still arguing that it's not the artist's job, when you yourself have just admitted that as an artist you do it? I'm not trying to be an asshole, I'm just curious. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

I never said that it is or it is not.
What I said is that the decision about the size and format is a matter of the person who manage the project. The guy who pays.
IF, he want the files to be sent in 6.875 x 10.4375 .
He will get these files in this format.
IF, he want something different, he will have something different.No artist will complain about doing that. Doing this is a not problem at all.
No artist are charging for resizing files.
No artist is charging for make every other adjustment when these are needed.

Nobody's twisting anything. Their argument is quite clear: the art should be the right size BEFORE it goes any further than pencils. If it gets to the letterer - literally the end of the assembly line - and it's not formatted correctly, then there IS a problem.

Again, THAT is a MISCONCEPTION.
Again, this is not a letterer decision.
This is not an artist decision.
It is an editor decision or project manager decision.
The guy who pay for the work is the one who determine
what size, what format and everything else.
And in what stage of the work
certain things should be done.
HE, and not the parts involved in the project.

That's what they ARE doing. And as long as they get paid, it's a pain in the ass for them to do, but they're getting compensated so they put up with it. It might be a stretch of me to say this, but I'd almost say that a letterer would rather get correctly-sized and proportioned art at the START, than have to screw around with trims and bleeds before they could start on their job, regardless of whatever extra they're charging you to fix it. Again, maybe a stretch, but personally, I'd rather have it right when I get it than have to fix it. That's just me.

So if you are getting paid for resizing ,what is your complain?
You found a way of making extra money with a simple Action in photoshop

Nobody's blaming anybody. Blaming makes it sound like it's finger-pointing, which is usually BS and not based off fact. But this is a FACT - the penciler is the first person to put any kind of art on the page. If the second person (the inker) gets a page that isn't formatted correctly, it's a FACT that the penciler messed up. And it's the inker's job as a member of the creative team to let the penciler know and get it fixed. Improperly formatted pages shouldn't get further than one person down the line before they're fixed.

The only thing that is a fact is that the letterer is affected by
sizes and formats and nobody else in the creative team does.
Not even the editors.

I call it annoying as hell. Hypothetically, if I'm lettering a comic, it's because I'm good at it and because I enjoy doing it (it sure as hell isn't for the fame and fortune). If I have to do something menial that SHOULD have been done LONG before I even got the page, before I can get to the job that I enjoy and that I'm proficient at, it A) kinda turns me off from lettering it at that moment and B) kinda pisses me off because someone before me screwed up and either didn't know it or did know and didn't care enough to fix it or speak up. And as someone who is trying to break in and make a name for myself in this industry, I think that's both unprofessional and unacceptable.
-Fred

If the things are coming wrong and nobody will pay you for the fixing, don't take the job. Look for something else.
There are plenty of opportunities out there.

Peace.

[Fred Duran]

Originally Posted by Scribbly

I never said that it is or it is not.
What I said is that the decision about the size and format is a matter of the person who manage the project. The guys who pay.
IF, he want the files to be sent in 6.875 x 10.4375 .
He will get these files in this format.

That doesn't tally with what I've experienced personally, nor with how I've come to perceive how this whole thing works from talking to others about it. Every time I've submitted something and gotten it published, I, the writer, have been the "project manager". I've coordinated the communications between myself and the artists and between the artists themselves. All the pages came to me at every stage (pencils, inks, etc.) before they went on to the next one. If there were any panels that needed changing, I talked to the artists until a consensus was reached between us and the edits were made. Of the three times that I've been published, NOT ONE TIME have I been the one calling the shots with regards to size and format. That's the publisher's job. The publisher sets the format. The artist FOLLOWS it, or the submission is REJECTED. It's really that simple. I'll even give you an example: When I submitted for the very first time to Dimestore, I emailed Ian Shires and point-blank asked him what file sizes he was looking for, and he told me "6.875 x 10.5 bleed canvass. 6.625x 10.25 trim edge." And I made sure that that was what the final submission looked like. That's how it's always worked. Publisher tells you how they want it, you make it like that, or you don't submit.

Originally Posted by Scribbly

Again, this is not a letterer decision.
This is not an artist decision.
It is an editor decision or project manager decision.
The guy who pay for the work is the one who determine
what size, what format and everything else.
Not the parts involved in the project.

The only decision that's being made by the art team is "do we want this to be rejected immediately for something stupid like formatting issues and miss the chance of getting it picked up?" or worse, "do we want this to be put out there all screwed up and out of place on the page so that it reads terribly and makes us look like terrible creators?" And honestly, if the penciler gets the file size specifications and doesn't make the art to those specifications, and the inker doesn't call him/her on it and the letterer decides "hey it's not my job," the answer to both those questions is "Yes."
And that's not the kind of decision I want to be making. So I make sure the pages of the comics I work on are right, and I ask the publisher what "right" is before anything else.

Originally Posted by Scribbly

So if you are getting paid for resizing ,what is your complain?
You found a way of making extra money with a simple Action in photoshop

It's not that they're complaining because they're getting paid, it's the principle of it. They're doing a job that they shouldn't have to do. I'm not a "pro" letterer though so I'm not going to speak to that anymore than I already have. Talk to the letterers about how they feel about having to repeatedly do work that they shouldn't have to do - and how most of the time they DON'T get paid for it.

Originally Posted by Scribbly

The only thing that is a fact is that the letterer is affected by
sizes and formats and nobody else in the creative team does.
Not even the editors.

Wrong. The entire creative team is affected. If the submission isn't to the specifications of the publisher, all that work and effort put in is wasted.

Originally Posted by Scribbly

If the things are coming wrong and nobody will pay you for the fixing, don't take the job. Look for something else.
There are plenty of opportunities out there.

I think you're missing the point, but at this point I've said all I can. The hierarchy of all this is publisher -> creative team. The publisher tells the creative team how it wants things submitted, and the creative team either A) listens and gets a shot or B) doesn't listen and gets shot down.

I'm trying for option A.

-Fred

[Scribbly]

Obviously, you still not getting what the point is.
I bet the experienced letterers here already did.

And you can not understand THE TECHNICAL PROBLEM
created when resizing a page after the pencil stage.

The next person working is the inker.
He/she NEED TO PRINT WHAT I SENT, so he/she can
work the inks in an 11x17-artboard sheet.

IF I DO THE RESIZING,
at 6.875 x 10.4375 what the inker get
is a file with the size of …a PRINTED COMIC BOOK.
TOO SMALL FOR WORKS THE INKS.!!!

If the inker magnifies the sheet to 11x17, the
Page goes pixilated for him to work with.

That is the reason of WHY the resizing must be done AFTER the
Inks are done.
After doing his work, the inker will scan again the whole page.
The page will be sent to the colorist.

THEN, is the moment for resizing the page.
After the inks are done. Or after the colors are done.
And not before.

Am I clear now?
Or should I repeat all again?

[L Jamal]

You are correct, the resizing of the page to final print size shouldn't happen until after the inks.

However, WE are talking about making sure the art has the correct bleed, trim and live area. That starts with the penciller and can be done with full size art.

[vartemis]

It seems like everyone is talking past everyone in this log, and the same things keep getting rehashed over and over again without any progress in the discussion.

A penciller should always do his pages at 10x15" (or a derivative of these proportions) UNLESS he is told otherwise, such as the new book Viking, or how we did Timothy and the Transgalactic Towel at 15x10". If you do any other size, you should have to go back and fix it as a penciller because you screwed up. Comics have been done at this dimension set for ages now, so it has basically become one of those "unwritten rules". If the pages are the wrong size, the person who is to blame 99.999% of the time is the penciller. If this is your first book you are working on, order the pre-lined art boards so you get an idea of how everything should be laid out, and when you get how everything should be on the page, you can start ruling out your own pages. Of all the projects I have worked on with wrongly sized pages, ALL of them were because the artist created his own pages; either on board or on paper. They tried to cut corners and save money, and they ended up wasting peoples’ time and money.

When I do editing work for Z2H, the first thing I email my artists is a Photoshop template for them to print out on whatever it is they are going to draw on. Then ONLY reason I did this was because it was understood that the majority of artists we were going to be using were first time comic artists, so I cut them a bit of slack. When we got pages from the pencillers that were the wrong sizes, it was the penciller who had to go back and fix it. Either fix it in Photoshop (if you can), light box it onto a new page, or (worst case scenario) redo the page.

Bottom line… it is the penciller’s responsibility to make sure the page is the right size. At no other point should the page really be resized to the proper art dimensions. If the inker tries to, he could distort the art, and not be able to render what the penciller has done. Doing it at the colorist’s stage can do the same thing. Resizing after colors is the worst… I repeat WORSE thing you can do, because you will screw up all the trappings and underprintings that are set up, and then you are really screwed.

j

[JeffPowell]

I started charging clients for raising my blood pressure.

[Fred Duran]

Originally Posted by ljamal

You are correct, the resizing of the page to final print size shouldn't happen until after the inks.

However, WE are talking about making sure the art has the correct bleed, trim and live area. That starts with the penciller and can be done with full size art.

Thank you! I never said anything about making the pages final print size, and if it seemed like that was what I was saying, I'm sorry for any confusion. I'm talking about bleed and trim and all that, which has to be set up first and then will be kept as a proportion when later reduced down to final print size.

-Fred

[FreemindVisionary]

Resizing is just a simple action in Photoshop? Really? So if the artist drew the page with intent to bleed the artwork off all edges, and they disregard live area and trims, placing important art near every edge, Photoshop magically fixes this? It's an impressive program, to be sure, but like most other things, it's Garbage In/Garbage Out.

And merely "refusing the job" isn't going to make that job correct. The next letterer down the line is going to A) tell them the same thing or B) not say anything, do a halfass job, and end up with a halfass printed piece, like pages meant to bleed showing the dreaded "white edges", or worse yet, slicing off text balloons, characters, or something else important. And then everyone loses.

As far as the blame game goes, does that really matter? All blaming does is allow someone to have a smug look on their face because THEY weren't the one to drop the ball. You can say it's the editor/project manager's fault, but if the ART is wrong, the ARTIST needs to be the one to fix it, not the man up top. Since everyone else's work is layered on top of the penciler's initial work, that's where it's most important to be correct. With that said, it's in their best interest to make sure their work is being done correctly in the first place. If they are, no one else will have any issues.

Scribbly, you've already basically said that you make sure all those things are in place before you start working. Kudos to you, you're not one of the horror stories we're talking about.

Lastly, I think as a comics professional of any kind, you should have working knowledge of how the production process works. If you don't, you're missing an important piece to the puzzle. I could elaborate on that, but I'm running late for work.

[PC812]

Originally Posted by JeffPowell

I started charging clients for raising my blood pressure.

...we can do that?

I know what's going in my next contract!

[NaveenM]

Originally Posted by Clem Robins

Marvel and DC and Image are great about sending properly sized artwork.

So is this done by the artist/inker? Are the pages aligned and resized by that person, and then sent on to rest of the team?

What I'm asking is, who's job is it to get the pages into the proper size?

[Comics Commando]

Marvel and DC and Image are great about sending properly sized artwork.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

So is this done by the artist/inker? Are the pages aligned and resized by that person, and then sent on to rest of the team?

What I'm asking is, who's job is it to get the pages into the proper size?

==============================

I'm not exactly sure what is your question...but generally size isn't the issue--that is, the actual size of the original art isn't important--it can be pretty much what the artist prefers..but what IS important is the dimensions of the page-artwork. By that I mean the height to width ratio. Comics pages are generally 1.5 times taller they they are wide. 10 wide by 15 tall--or 20 wide by 30 tall (mm, inches or feet)--the relationship is what's important, not the actual size of the original art.

But even that's too general.

If a page is intended to be full bleed, the dimensions are different from a non-bleed, or what I call a standard page dimensions. Artists are notoriously bad at math, I guess--But I don't think of it as math--I think of it as foreplanning.

Plan-layout-draw the page so it looks like you expected it to look like in the final, printed comic book. Lack of foreplanning results in inset panels that are no longer inset, important art being cut off in the printing process, and other compositional errors.

For instance, if an artist were hired to draw a postcard--he wouldn't draw a circular composition and expect it to fill the postcard--a postcard isn't a circle. A circular composition would be placed on the postcard with lots of extra space.

Comic books in the U.S. are printed at a specific dimension--printers in the biz stick to a particular dimension.

To complicate matters, printers don't all conform to the same dimension--but they are all pretty close.

Pencilers MUST conform to these dimensions...IF THEY WANT THEIR ART TO PRINT-CROP CORRECTLY.

If they don't care--they don't care. Seems kinda stupid to me do draw a page for 6-8 hours only to have it print all wacky-like, but--I'm not the artist...

BUT--it does affect my work--that of lettering--I want my lettering to print correctly--so if some dumb-ass penciller comes along with some jack-ass layout that's not thought out in advance, it makes my work look like shit.

I've gone on way too long--for a complete tutorial on what I'm talking about--I call it comics art 101--since every artist should know this before they draw their first pro page (or indy page)--I wrote a tutorial on this very matter because of my frustration with the artwork I receive on a weekly basis.

I'm not even a penciller, But I learned this when was 13 yrs old and and comics fan.

Bleed Specs:
http://rapidshare.com/files/21978639...s_Tutorial.pdf



Best,

Kurt Hathaway
Cartoon Balloons Studio

Lettering / Logos / Fonts / Pre-Press / Page Design / Motion Graphics
for Print or Web / Entertainment, Advertising or Education!

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETGevjPkZso

[pashburn25]

this is awesome. thanx for the knowledge. i have spent the last 6 or 7 months practicing on sequentials/figure drawing/backgrounds now its nice to know how to resize my 11x17 boards(also dpi) so that another artist can deal with them properly. i have a few more questions but i'll just look around on related forums around here. thanx again.

[Comics Commando]

I think my rapidshare link is dead, so...

Anyone who wants my bleed vs. live art tutorial, drop me a line at my all-new address:

khathawayart@gmail.com

and I'll pop it off to ya!

It explains the proper way to format art for comics. Every comics artist should know it backwards and forwards.



Best,

Kurt Hathaway
Cartoon Balloons Studio

Lettering / Logos / Fonts / Pre-Press / Page Design / Motion Graphics
for Print or Web / Entertainment, Advertising or Education!

My AIM screen name: Kurt Hathaway
contact me anytime

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETGevjPkZso