This is a survey I’ve seen around a few places.  I figure it’ll be easier down the line to point to this page then explain how I do art stuff to people all the time.

Harry Myland (IV)
Comics: Nomad Tofu, various mini comics, an unnamed project or two.
Website: www.harrymyland.com
Making comics since year of: 2006 (seriously, anyway)
Art education/schools attended: A few advanced placement courses in high school and 3 courses or so at a private college.  That’s about it.

Pencils: At one time I worshiped the mechanical pencil.  Fairly recently I’ve been using a softer graphite and am starting to dig it a lot more – you get better line variation, and shading is a lot more intuitive.   I have a couple boxes of #2 pencils that I’m currently burning through, but after they’re gone I’ll get something fancier – once in a while I use random “art guy” quality pencils I’ve accumulated over the years.  Depending on the project, I’ll sometimes used PRISMACOLOR non-photo blue and a random color for backgrounds.  I’m also completely sold on this cheap, FABER-CASTELL sharpener that stores your pencil shavings, I don’t make nearly the mess I use to, and it’s more discreet and simple then say, an electric or battery powered sharpener.

Inks: My current bottle of ink is a PRO ART brand of India Ink.  I’ve used HIGGINS before too.  *Shrug*  It works.

Brushes: SAPPHIRE brushes, size 1, S51 and S85 – I think I went with them because they were the Robert Simmons brand, and the thought of using Robert Simmons brushes made me laugh and laugh… I’ll probably get good inking brushes in the future though.  Oh, I also like FABER-CASTELL brush pens for the five minutes before their points get flat and useless.  I’m debating on possibly picking up a real brush pen as I type this and see if that’s any better.

Pens: As I noted above, the FABER-CASTELL brush pens are great until they konk out after the first or second use (I’m talking linework here).  Their colored line of brush pens are pretty great for shading though…  I also like their line of felt tipped pens, even more so then the hallowed MICRON (I think F.C pens take erasing better).  I also love the fat, black, double ended PRISMACOLOR markers for panel borders and heavy black fills.  I need to invest in some better fat markers for colors, though.  I still use simple ball point pens for doodling too, I dunno why, I think it’s because I doodled a lot in school.. instead of paying attention, of course, like every other cartoonist ever.

I’ll also take this opportunity to note that for most of my inking, I use a computer.  Wacom tablet + Photoshop CS2 = love.  My Wacom is a 4×5.  A lot of people like bigger sizes because they can use their shoulder more for strokes.  I like being able to make a quick wrist flick and getting across the page though, or at least, I’m used to it, and it works, so whatevs.

Paper: STRATHMORE bristol in the yellow pads, smooth.  For PUB I am using 9″x12″ sheets and measuring them out to 7″x11″.  For everything else I have big tablets of 19″x24″ and will cut them to whatever size necessary.  For sketchbooks I use these really sturdy hardback PRO ART books in two sizes, 8.5″x11″ and a pocket size 4″x6″ I call my Sketch Bible, though I mostly use the bigger one.

Lettering: I can’t hand letter for the life of me.  Sound effects and big exclamations are okay, but dialogue?  Forget it.  I just use Blambot fonts or whatever looks good.

Color: I like using colored pencils in my sketchbooks.  For something more serious I’ll whip out the FABER-CASTELL brush pens or once in a blue moon a box of pastels.  For something super serious I’ll most likely use a computer and Photoshop.  I’m also starting to trek the watercolor and acrylic waters, though I’m not nearly confident enough with them to show anything.

Layout/ Composition: I do thumbnails in my sketchbook.  I try to use the Sketch Bible because it’s the perfect size for thumbs, but I wind up using the bigger one anyway.  As I mentioned with PUB, I take 9″x12″ bristol and measure it to 7″x11″ with 1/32 inch bleeds.  I use a non-photo blue pencil to measure out the outline, but use a standard pencil to draw with.. mostly because I like normal pencils over colored ones when drawing.  I work pretty darn tight though – I’m digitally inking PUB and want original art to sell later, so I need to be able to erase a lot and I haven’t been able to find good color pencils that erase well (Yes, I am aware of COL-ERASE, no, I haven’t bought them because they don’t carry ‘em near me.  Online art stores still scare me for some reason..).  I’ll scan the pencils with a kinda crappy half scanner/half printer-that-doesn’t-work, then upload the pencils to a blank template I’ve pre-made in Photoshop so the strips stay the same size.  Oftentimes I’ll convert the pencils to a light blue hue before inking.

Other projects vary.  If I’m doing inks on paper I’ll use a colored pencil (PRISMACOLOR, usually) and make them really loose.

Convention Sketches (when different from illustrations done in the studio): I can’t wait until I’m able to answer this question… *tear* :’(

Tool timeline, starting from when you began drawing in any serious way until the present, and what spurred the changes: When I first started I used MICRONS and simple computer paper a whole lot.  Now I’ll only do serious projects on bristol, and I rarely use Microns anymore.  I think the changes started when I tried using the hunt, and realized that I was missing out on line quality/variation.  Things kinda snowballed from there, now I’m incredibly picky/quirky with what I use, and I have a feeling I’ll get even pickier as the years go by.

What tools you’d never use, and why: Like I said, I won’t use computer paper anymore for art stuff, and I’ve gotten to the point where it bothers me when people do, even for scribbling.  It’s fine for like, printing essays and words and junk, the quality just isn’t there for images.  It’s almost the same way I feel about comic floppies – they’re too cheap for the time and effort that goes into the art.  Actually, I feel exactly the same way about computer paper as I do comic floppies.