[syntheweave]

I've been having a joyful time exploring art tools lately and - in a turn similar to switching back to a classic typewriter, I recently realized that ballpoint pens, the same kind I doodled with in school, are, in fact, great sketching pens. The oily ink in most of them isn't made to last, and they have a nasty habit of spurting out dabs of ink at random when you move the pen, but they let you make thin, faint, precise lines and add layers of shading and texture, and they're stingy with ink usage and don't saturate the paper. So I can sketch with ballpoint and then use my "nicer" pens to add finished lines.

I have a decent enough digital art setup, but I really find myself drawn to traditional lately. Like, the input just isn't as good in digital for doing characterful lines. There are pretty good stylus systems now, but they have a handful of different shapes and nib frictions, the raw output is always a little bit too aliased to be satisfying, and it always ends up going into software that stabilizes it into a generic swooshy line. So you have to work at it to get something like an analog result. And most of the things you really benefit from in digital happen either at the beginning(edits to help with planning) or at the end(corrections and layered treatments).

But the two things that help the most are also there in traditional: use references, and make straight ruler lines and take measurements to help get the initial shapes in proportion. If you're mashing the undo a lot you're still wasting time that is mostly accounted for by good planning and use of technical drawing tools.

And writing really is the same way. Good command of language isn't really restricted by slow writing speed.