If you’re like me, you’ve dabbled with digital sketching here and there only to find yourself in a quagmire of confusion and disappointment as you realize that your newly acquired tools do not instantly offer a newly acquired increase in talent or skill.

But, never fear, I have 5 simple tips to help ease the transition:

1. Relax & Warm Up

As I always tell anyone who asks about how to sketch well, relaxing is probably one of the most important things to remember when sketching. Not only is relaxation important, but warming up, as you would on paper, is important as well. Certainly you won’t hurt yourself by sketching without warming up, but you’ll be better off for it. Sketching on a digital tablet will feel different depending on which tip you use in a stylus. Warming up with help you get adjusted to the transition and help you find your “footing”

2. Pick a program

Corel Painter is my favorite sketching program, but Autodesk Sketchbook pro is definitely a close second.

Why do I like painter? It works for me. Just as you have your favorite tool when sketching on paper, pick a program and try to stick with it. Sticking with the same program will get you quickly familiarized with the ins and outs of the tools you’re about to use in a shorter period of time instead of spreading yourself thin by focusing on mastering several sketch programs. I like the brush creator in Painter the best, which leads me to the next tip…

3. Use Custom Brushes

Standard brushes usually aren’t that great, at least in my experience. They’re like vanilla ice cream – they might work for most people but there’s nothing remarkable about them. The brush creator in some programs can be a little intimidating at first. Embrace your new found power and try coming up with some brushes you like and work for you. It’s part of getting your own style, and will go a long way in helping you be more efficient when sketching digitally.

4. When in doubt, rough it out

If you’re struggling to get that idea out digitally and frankly you’re having a ham fisted day, it doesn’t hurt to take some time to return to the familiar and rough out your design intent on paper. Don’t waste time trying to make it right the first time either. Build layers, scratch and scribble if you can and build a rough framework for the sketch.

5. Work smarter and harder

Practice makes perfect, but also practicing how to work smarter makes perfect. Stop and think for a sec – I’m sketching digitally, what advantages does this medium present over sketching with pen and paper? It’s simple really. For one, it’s easy to make quick, non destructive design iterations using layers in a sketching package. It’s also easy to quickly integrate the use of CAD as a tool or guide for proportion. Using reference without printing is also another advantage. The point is, find what digital tricks work for you, and start to work them into your sketch process. In the long run, you’ll find that those tools you put in your toolbox as you practice will go a long way.

If you have any other suggestions, leave a comment below or share them in the forums! Happy sketching.

In case you missed it, here’s a roundup of the daily sketches posted over on sketch-a-day.com. This weeks sketches include a watch, lots of robots, computer speakers and even a few spaceships. Check em out after the jump.

This week I had the chance to visit my old college and man was it fun. Of course, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to stop by the bookstore and check out the awesome selection of pens, paper, chalk and all the yummy goodness that any artist could want to get their grubby hands on. Then the idea came to me – I’ll do a pen shootout! I love sketching with pens, and frankly, my go-to fineliners and hitecs are getting too comfortable to use, so I thought I’d mix things up and take some time this week and maybe part of text looking at each pen, and giving it a fair score based on a certain set of criteria – drying time, line quality, nip durability, line variability, how they interact with markers and so on. As always, I’m open to suggestions on what to cover. I’ll be using bond paper, marker paper, and tracing paper to evaluate each pen. So look forward to seeing a few posts and my discoveries with each pen.

Ok in this section I photocopied my sketch and made a 2 inch x 3 inch copy of my sketch to pick a direction in which my light source will come from. I rendered it out some to get a feel for what I want my contrast to be. This mini sketch rendering will serve as my guide once I import my final sketch into the computer. I used a set of warm gray markers ranging 2-6 (20% – 60%). My layering consisted of using warm gray 4 the most and reapplying after each dry set. I used rubbing alcohol to juice up dry markers, a quick dip usually does the trick.

Built up from a number 2 warm gray marker. The main focus was to establish contrast and separate foreground and background planes.

2×3 inch scans of my larger sketch. Working this small helps me focus on figuring out the lighting and where shadows fall.

Light is lowing into the interior from the driver’s side window. I chose to keep the background fairly slight and saturated to keep the viewers focus on the front of the sketch.

In case you missed it, here’s a roundup of the daily sketches posted over on sketch-a-day.com. This weeks sketches include a bike helmet, cake mixers, cars, and even a sewing machine. Check em out after the jump.

Sewing Machine:

POP Credit Card Units:

Hand Mixers:

Soap Dispensers:

Bike Helmet:

Rough Car Sketches:

Snowboarding Boots:

So at this point my perspective issue Is in check for the most part, but graphically things are disjointed. Now that I understand where things go and the thickness of objects, I can go back and start to relate areas with similar graphic break ups to make the sketch look more consistent and cohesive. I then sketched out stand alone sections like the steering column on a seprate sheet of vellum to manage my work load and not confuse myself. Makes it easier to then scan it in, and replace it digitally when the time comes.

I re-sketched the steering column on a separate piece of vellum to get my perspective right. It took me a few tries, however I found re-tracing to be the easiest for me.

I then corrected the angle of the dashboard in the sketch as well as worked on integrating some of the shapes and forms a bit better. This drawing happens to be heavy on linework, so I’ll choose my final go-around in the computer where I can mask sections and color areas easily. First, I need to select the right light source.

This and the previous sketch both contain elements for the next round of cketching. I don’t usually have a set or predetermined number of re-traces. Typically, I’ll sketch something out until I’m satisfied or just plain tired.

So This week I decided to pick a interior sketch from my sketchbook. The main things  I battled with was perspective problems. Its natural to put a curve or jester to a line while you sketch. Gestural lines are great for sketchbooks but don’t translate well in technical drawings. I plan to convert my gestural sketch into more of a technical drawing without losing some of the interesting qualities (line weight, graphic break-up, etc).

First step is to grab some vellum, scan in and clean up your starting sketch and start mapping out my changes. Before you can make changes you have to understand what is wrong the sketch. Simply reflect you sketch in a mirror and all the perspective problems will become apparent.

Below is the roughed out sketch. Right away you may notice the perspective problems, the surfaces that aren’t relating, and a poor sense of depth. So my first task here is to overlay and fix the most noticable problems.

The dashboard was a major factor in this sketch once I set up its position in the foreground. Everthing else relates to it. if you notice, the front driver’s seat is a bit more unrealistic than an actual car interior, but it works for the sketch. In a composition like this where I’m only showing half of the interior, I can cheat in some areas.

Check back tomorrow for part II of the series.

If you haven’t already heard, Apple announced this thing they’ve been working on for some time – a tablet, the iPad. Well, part of that announcement was the face that there’d be no flash on the iPad – a big deal for some, but I couldn’t care less. In any case, part of all this hullaballoo has been discussions about HTML5 being the wave of the future. Just do a google search if you’re curious about html5 and you’ll find a ton of info on what it is.

I won’t bore you with all the details about coding, but I found this cool online sketchbook via monkeedesign.com with a link to an completely flash free sketching application. It loads really fast, and the lack of flash means no plugins, or weird quirks provided the code is well executed and standards compliant of course. It really is cool. you’ll need a modern browser to check it out i.e. the ones we support here most of all – Firefox (Latest Version), Safari 4, and Chrome.

I’ve seen a few examples of HTML5, but this is by far the most interesting to me since it’s a decent drawing tool. I’m hoping it’s embeddable and portable. Would be really cool integrating this into blogs etc. Looks like you can sign up for a beta on the main site. I imagine the link may go dead after some time. Enjoy.

via monkeedesign twitter

In case you missed it, here’s a roundup of the daily sketches posted over on sketch-a-day.com. This weeks sketches include robots, trash cans, video cameras and even a shoe. Check em out after the jump.

See the full sized images after the jump:

Trash Cans

Materials Used (Amazon): Prismacolor Pencil on Tracing Paper colored in Adobe Photoshop CS4

Flip Style Video Camera

Materials Used (Amazon): Prismacolor Pencil and Prismacolor Marker on Marker Paper

Robots

Materials Used (Amazon): Prismacolor Pencil on Tracing Paper

Athletic Shoe

Materials Used (Amazon): Pilot Fineliner and Prismacolor Marker on Tracing Paper touched up with Adobe Photoshop CS4

Pet Feeders

Materials Used (Amazon): Pilot Fineliner and Prismacolor Marker on Tracing Paper

Turbines/Engines

This is my last sketch/render before I push my final rendering. At this point my surfacing is clear, direction of lighting, and perspective, yet, everything is still a little loose and expressive. I try to maintain the overall feel of the initial gesture sketch through the process.