I've been working traditionally now ever since I could remember; preference for one kind of typing paper mutated into a love of drawing on bristol board, artistic implements over the years have ranged from No. 2 pencils and Pilot Roller Ball pens to No-Photo Blue and Micron Technical pens / Copic Brush. I've relied on Gum erasers and White-Out to correct my numerous mistakes, effective yet messy. In the last 8 years I've used a light desk for edits / revisions while mucking my way uphill both ways. With little formal training I've managed over the years to back myself into a stylistic corner - feeling like my abilities have been stretched as far as they go.

Few weeks back while working on cleaning up some pieces in CS5 something kinda hit me somewhere...

"THIS makes no-sense."

I sat here in my new ergonomically correct chair ratcheted up ever so high and looked at what I was in the middle of doing. Cleaning up a "finished" piece of art in a program on my iMac, seeing the apparent defects and crap quality of the image, wondering where this road might lead - I came to to conclusion that THIS road has a dead-end. I figure I've actually driven to the end of this road many years ago and since then I've been spinning my wheels and found little reward in going at it in the traditional manner. Having an epiphany (for lack of better word) like this I came to the conclusion that I've been beating a dead horse that'll never win The Preakness.

The Dale Hunter inspired kool-Aid I've been chugging lately has me seeing a new direction - I'm attempting the switch to working digitally. For better than worse the way I see it; ultimately it all ends up digitally - who makes comics totally by hand anymore? Even if you draw your comic / strip by hand most people scan their work, touch it up, add colours, letters and polish. Comics especially nowadays seem to have a cool new direction because of things like photoshop and new external devices. Bedways is rightways now, or so it should follow that by working digitally I can cut-out the middle-men and make production a bit easier if not faster. Some kind of catalyst for change at the very least. I've been working off of my wacom tablet now for the last little while and it's been fun - bringing new excitement to life long passions is a good thing so I've just been enjoying the digital ride so far I've gone in. It's pretty daunting at first cause there's a WIDE range of tools literally at your finger tips which you can use in an infinite number of ways.

Freddie E Williams' II book "The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics" has helped me a good deal. I picked it up after my friend Gilbert took to drawing digitally for a project "Super" he was doing with Justin Newberry - another buddy who's an artist / writer / dynamic force. Gilbert had read up on and bought Freddie Williams' book and recommended it to me. When I first went through it ways back I learned from it, all those DC Guide books I get good things from, and this time picking it back up and using it I've found it to be a great resource. Figuring out the different methods of working and finding what works best for me has been part of the challenge. Finding the flow digitally has been the other part - comfort with the stylus and tools is another. I've seen friends who've taken to the digital method right away and can work wonders with it. Drawing digitally is so novel to me now I wonder at what point it becomes "just another thing" and I'm a +1 before I hit the ice.