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forkfighter — Tutorial for Ballpoint-Pens
Published: 2006-03-22 19:52:58 +0000 UTC; Views: 45442; Favourites: 330; Downloads: 866
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Description
Full title: Tutorial for ballpoint-pen drawings, 2nd version.This is my first tutorial here on dA, created during the work on my monster project. Some sketches and drawings from this project come along with several general hints and techniques, which makes the tutorial probably not only interesting for traditional artists, but also for others.
I hope you like it
Please tell me what you think of it!
Update 1/7/2008: 36 faves - thanks for the support! I didn't expect such reactions
Update 2/29/2010: 118 faves - this tutorial seems to be able to beat the number of faves on my daily deviation. dA community, you surprise me! thanks again!
Update 2/23/2011: 179 faves - now it's the most faved one of my deviations. guys, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT! unfortunately, i can't pay you off by creating new deviations right now, but i'll try to keep it up!
Update 10/07/2012: 253 faves. This calls for celebration!
Due to the overwhelming feedback, I just created a new, improved version of this tutorial, fixing some minor and major errors and visibility problems and featuring a new layout as well as additional ideas and sketches. Enjoy!
Feel free to check out my other tutorial on detailing:
[link]
Related content
Comments: 89
I really appreciate your words, thank you very, very much. Honestly, I didn't expect such reactions at all!
I hope I'll find the time to watch your sketches; I'm really busy at university in the moment. But I promise to give my best
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Thank you very much.
You are amazing and I can't wait to see what you will do next!
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It's going to be something more complex than the last deviations. I started shading a new picture in the style of "Fading" two days ago. It will probably take a while until it's finished, since I have to do all the preparation work for the exams in the end of this week and next week, but I want to finish it as fast as possible.
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Very nice tutorial, awesome job! I know what kind of drawings I'm going to do for now on ;D
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Mission accomplished 
Thanks a lot! I did it just for the dA-community, that's why I appreciate your comment that much.
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Ya, no problem, you really earned that comment. I have been reading that tutorial and just drawing with ballpoint pen for a few hours now
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Wow! I really can't beleive how few fav's this got! I've only read half of it and it's already been a tremendous help to me. The wirtten tips were great. Thanks a bunch.
Me and my new pens would be lost without you.
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Thanks a lot! I just thought that a bit promotion for ballpoint-pens is always right, as there are so few people actually drawing with them.
I think I'd write some things different today, but unfortunately I don't have the .cpt-file anymore, which means that I'll just have to keep it like that. Makes me just a lot more glad to see that there are people liking this piece anyway
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This is one of the best tutorials I have seen. I think that you did well in writing about art and ballpoint pen drawing in general while avoiding just showing how you do it.
So, really, good tutorial. I want to try out this style now.
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Sounds like the idea behind it worked
Thank you very much!
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brilliant tutorial, very inspiring and it even reads well
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Thanks a lot! Sorry for the spelling mistakes and words left out, but I don't have the corel-file anymore, so I'm not able to change it until I don't write the whole text anew :S
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Danke! Hoffe es hilft wirklich weiter und kratzt nicht nur an der Oberfläche
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Big fan of ballpoint and pens in general this is a great tutorial. Very infromative and full of plenty of inforamtion that I think everyone could find useful. Mad props to you for making this. This is very good and was a nice read.
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Thanks a lot
I spent a lot time on collecting the different ideas and it was quite easy to put it all together. Nice to hear that somebody actually finds it useful!
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This is long, but helpful. I personally love pencil. I try other mediums, but so far they havn't done very well. I'll try your tutorial this summer. I don't have any time right now, and I feel sad. I want to sit and draw, but I can't.
You're awesome at this though. I'm going to have to e-mail you. ^_^
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Why so sad?
First of all, thank you very much for commenting and faving
I'm still improving my style concerning pens, because it's everything but perfect. But that's actually why I like it so much. If you are able to change and improve details on your style, this is probably the best motivation you could ever get. During the creation process of my monster project I've learned a lot especially concerning shadows. This point doesn't come out clear enough in this tutorial. Maybe I'll add another one some day. But quite probably not too soon. I have to get back to work now
I'm very happy about each and every email
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I'm sad because I'm too busy to draw. In 6 weeks school will be over, and I won't have to worry about projects anymore. Which is very nice.
Have you tried felt-tip pens and other types of pens? Ball-points seems like it'd be hard to work with.
...Maybe when I get all these dumb projects done I'll be able to e-mail you, but until then, I'm going to have to just comment.
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That's very much okay, I think
I have tried felt-pens and copics before and worked with different types of charcoal, chalk, water colors and stuff like that. Ballpoint-pens are totally my thing, because they do everything I want a good pen to do in general, which is: good contrasts in a likely short time and - that's why I didn't chose felt-pens - the possibility to really create detailed pictures, which is also possible with pencils, but they lack of contrasts, if you chose harder ones and the softer ones smear too easily. They are hard to work with, that's true, especially if you worked with pencils before, because they are very different concerning shading (mostly on bigger surfaces, but also on small ones). But after a while, you'll get used to it and then they only have advantages in my humble opinion. In the moment, I'm very happy with ballpoint-pens (especially, because I've stopped using blue-colored pens, they can really have disgusting color tones) and therefore see no reason to change anything
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You speak words of wisdom my friend.
This is truely a very helpful and detailed tutorial on ballpoint pens.
It's a shame there isn't more of its kind out there because pen art is some of the most interesting pieces or artwork out there. Which is one of the reasons why I too an stab at it myself.
This tutorial was truely a great help to me. Thanks for putting so much time into it.
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Oh, and of course thank you a lot for taking the time to write a comment and faving
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By the way, your very welcome. And I finally got a chance to take a closer look at your gallery. Awesome gallery. Very nice pieces!!
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Thanks very much!
I mainly did it, because I am convinced by the idea of tutorials. I learned a lot of them myself. As there are really very few people drawing with ballpoint-pens, I think it is a great thing to make it a bit more popular. It has a lot of advantages, it is not as hard to do as ink (you don't have to get new ink every few lines) and it is much better in creating contrasts. I know only about one or two artists here on dA, who actually work with pens. That's kind of strange, because they're very cheap and the technique itself is not really hard to learn (especially if you have already practised with pencils, because the main shading elements (except smearing) are all the same).
On the other hand, it can also be an advantage to work with a medium that is not as popular as others. Your art is much more unique. It's much easier to find your own style, if you don't do it on areas, where there are already lots of artists. It helped me a lot to find a likely new and unique combination of lines and shadows.
Anyway. I learned a lot here on dA, mainly because of the constructive criticism which I received, and I just wanted to give something back. Nice 2 hear it was helpful
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I too mainly learn a great deal of infomations that mostly comes from dA tutorial section. I even have it the tutorial section bookmarked in Favorites in my computer!! Pen art truely is a fun and unique style in itself which is why I want to experience with ballpoint pens more. The reason why I think that its not as popular as it should be is because once you make a mistake on paper its craved in stone and some artists cant handle that. This this can be challenging and fun too since it forces artists to be creative with their mistakes. Plus the media is super cheap and you cant go wrong with that. Now that you mention it I only know a couple of artists who draws wih ink to and I seriously envy and respect them for it. And that includes you as well. And you're right about one thing: techinques such as cross-hatching and stippling are the same in pen as they are in pencil. But in my opinion they just look better this way.
So, in short, just wanted to let you know that I did learn alot from your tutorial and thought that it was a great deal of help. That's why it deserves to be faved.
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Thanks a lot
That's exactly the way I think about it. You create your images as if they were pencil drawings, but they simply look better. Contrasts are much easier to create with a ballpoint pen.
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Wow ich bin echt sprachlos. Ich glaube ein solches "fettes" Tut hat hier noch nicht jemand hochgeladen oder so was ist einfach nur selten. Man merkt echt das du dir viele gedanken gemacht hast und das finde ich einfach grandios. Ich hab zwar schon sehr viel Erfahrung mit der Schraffur aber ich fand es sehr interessant mal zu sehen wie jemand anderes das aufbaut und cih muss sagen, das es sich schon in einer Art und Weise änelt. Trotzdem habe ich hier und da noch was dazu gelernt^^ Echt mega
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Wow, danke man! Ich weiß nicht, bei mir hat sich einfach im Laufe der letzten Monate enorm viel an neuen Erkenntnissen breitgemacht, nicht nur was die Technik an sich angeht, sondern vor allem auch in den umliegenden Gebieten. Ich habe einfach meine Ideen zum Thema Tutorial auf ganz kleine Zettel gepackt, von denen waren es dann zum Schluss 5 oder 6 Stück, die vorne und hinten klein beschriftet waren. Ich wollte das Tutorial eigentlich erst posten, wenn das richtige Bild auch fertig ist, aber irgendwie wäre es ja blödsinn, es so lange Anderen vorzuenthalten
Es war richtig amüsant, noch einmal ein paar ältere Skizzenbögen durchzugehen. Von dort habe ich die ganzen Illustrationen im oberen Teil des Textes. Da waren so viele Ideen, die irgendwann auf der Strecke geblieben sind, vor allem, weil ich einfach nicht die Fähigkeiten hatte, sie richtig umzusetzen.
Meine Vorgehensweise für Kulizeichnungen hat sich im Laufe der Zeit auch ziemlich geändert. Es ist aber sinnvoll, den Schraffurvorgang in kleinere Unterteile zu gliedern, besonders weil man dann immer wieder kleinere Erfolgserlebnisse hat und auch gerne mit mehreren Ebenen arbeitet. Dadurch erhöht sich der Detailgrad enorm.
Ursprünglich war das gesamte Tut noch ne ganze Ecke größer, aber ich musste es ein bisschen herunter skalieren, damit es auf den Bildschirm passt
Mir geht es im Moment irgendwie generell so, dass ich, wenn ich etwas mache, es auch richtig machen möchte. Daher ist das Teil wohl ein bisschen groß geworden
Vielen Dank auf jeden Fall für den Fave!
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Infinite thanks, m'friend. I feel so.. enlightened.
But now I'm going insane... waiting for the full picture....
--
I know someone who looks like the people of Happy Nation. Really. o.o
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Please, don't! It will take some more time... I am working on page 24 or 25 now, I think that there are about 5 more sheets to go concerning the traditional part... But the digital part really makes me worry. Even the export process for this piece took some minutes. I don't want to know, how much time my slow PC will need to fill even small parts of the background with textures... Oh my no.
Well, it looks great up to now
Thank you so much! And of course for the fave, too!
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Can't help it. :>
How are you keeping all those sheets in order?
Er.. Good luck with that.. Hehe.
You could always do it in pieces, and put it all together when you're done, like you're doing with the pen-part, right?
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I probably could, yeah. But it's much harder to do it that way, because the background "sheets" are completely filled, which actually means that I would have to correct ALL the borders of every sheet by hand. And it's gonna be probably something around 20-30 background sheets... I think I'll give it a try with Photoshop. Perhaps I'll have to practise a bit, but everything else would just not satisfy such a detailed foreground ^^
Thanks a lot!
I actually don't keep them in order ^^ As there are not connections between each and every sheet, but only between some of them, I can just put all the sheets I've already put together somewhere else, where they don't disturb anybody
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very informative
How long did that take you to make? (the tutorial)
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I hope so
I worked on it the whole day. But that's not really all, because I started collecting ideas months ago. The picture at the bottom took about 10 hours. I think all in all it would be around 20 hours...
Thanks for the comment!
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